


Hemsut

by 126916912



Series: Deleted 1213659/126916912 Works [3]
Category: The Boyz (Korea Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Graphic Injury, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Time Skips, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-27 07:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 50,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30119121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/126916912/pseuds/126916912
Summary: Them, Ussangyeon finds himself interested in a regular customer at the 7-eleven at the airport where he works."There's an urban legend," Sangyeon says, perhaps not exactly what the customer wants but it is something. "Apparently somewhere in this very airport there is a time portal.""That's a funny rumour," the customer says. "Maybe we should look for it together."
Relationships: Lee Jaehyun | Hyunjae/Lee Sangyeon
Series: Deleted 1213659/126916912 Works [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2216154
Kudos: 3





	1. Sangyeon

°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠼⠃⠚⠁⠊⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

"You come here a lot," Sangyeon says as he scans through the items brought to the checkout. He just says it offhand as he bags up the assorted items and doesn't voice any of his suspicions about the purchases. A razor, a miniature bottle of shampoo, a bag of tortilla chips. 

The customer sighs, the inconvenience of having to actually interact with the person serving him a bit too heavy for the early morning. It isn't too unexpected from a businessman, especially considering condescending attitudes grow regardless of age. "Well, Sangyeon, some people need to travel a lot."

As often as it happens, Sangyeon hesitates after the customer says his name. His hands always itch to grasp at his nametag and hide it from view despite having already been seen. This time is no different but, as always, Sangyeon keeps his hands where they are supposed to be and he adds the price of the carrier bag to the total. ₩9809 like it always is. Sangyeon reads out the price and the customer taps his card against the reader to pay the price. 

"Good luck on your travels," Sangyeon says because he's allegedly paid enough to be polite. 

The customer raises his eyebrows at Sangyeon and unhooks the carrier bag from his fingers before leaving. 

There are no customers queueing behind the man and Sangyeon has some moments to himself as he watches sleepy travellers browse the aisles. Belatedly, Sangyeon’s hand does drift up to his chest to feel where his nametag should be. The weave of his polo shirt is uninterrupted. He wonders whether anybody would be pedantic enough to mention Sangyeon’s missing nametag before he can sneak off to the locker room to retrieve it and pin it in place. 

He was right about the customer. He comes too often if he knows Sangyeon’s name without looking. 

The Customer comes again - not that he is the only customer Sangyeon ever sees working at a convenience store at an airport terminal, but he's the only one Sangyeon sees frequently enough that he'd take notice of it. 

The customer slowly makes his way around the aisles and Sangyeon assumes there won't be any purchases today. But then the customer slides a packet of hairslides onto the counter. Sangyeon scans the barcode and hesitates over reading the price before the customer adds, "I'll have a hotdog too, thanks." 

Sangyeon raises his eyebrows, wonders why the customer can be so sure about requesting something in a tone like that. But Sangyeon had made sure he was wearing his nametag today so if the customer had any complaints about being challenged there'd be no element of doubt to wriggle out of a warning getting added to his file. That being said, Sangyeon feels compelled to say something to the customer. Even after getting an icy response last time, Sangyeon likes to talk. 

"How long is it until your flight?" 

The irritated sigh doesn't come this time. Instead the customer shuffles on the other side of the counter and watches the clumsy movements of Sangyeon sliding the hotdog bun into the cardboard coffin. Sangyeon glances up, just to see whether he'd been heard. The customer just about manages a smile, tired. 

"I don't have long."

Sangyeon nods and uses the tongs to retrieve a hotdog from the warmer. "Will your flight be long? Not to sound presumptuous, but you don't exactly look like you could take it."

The customer laughs, a surprised gust that fades into exhaustion. "It's hard but it is for work. Sort of. I think it will be worth it in the end."

"You shouldn't run yourself ragged for a job," Sangyeon says as he puts the hotdog on the counter. He inputs the food on the till using the garish buttons on the touch screen. The price is the same as always: ₩9809. Sangyeon pauses for a moment but remembers himself when he spots the motion of the customer reaching into his pocket. 

Sangyeon points out the sauces on top of the sneezeguard as the customer taps his card on the chip and pin device to pay. 

"I don't have a choice at the minute," the customer says. He eyes the condiment bottles and their crusted nozzles and smiles pleasantly at Sangyeon. "I need to find someone."

"Oh, are you a private eye or something?"

The customer smiles and reaches for the hairslides to tuck into his pocket. "It is something very similar."

"Cool," Sangyeon says. "Oh, is that why you're so observant?" 

"Observant?" 

Sangyeon nods at the repeated word. "You knew my name last time you came in. I wasn't wearing my nametag but you must have remembered after coming in so many times between flights."

The customer doesn't say anything, only gives up on the hairslides and takes a napkin from the dispenser. Sangyeon wonders how something like this could be such a sore point but the customer clears his throat. 

"Yeah. I remembered because of that."

The customer leaves with their hotdog and Sangyeon only has two minutes before the next customer brings a basket to the till. He is only allowed those two minutes to shake off the irritation. 

Sangyeon tries not to say anything to the customer on this occasion. He looks ruffled and there are fading remnants of bruises on his face. But it isn't Sangyeon’s place to ask. So Sangyeon scans the electrical adapter the customer brought up to the counter and the pair of socks and the packet of mints. He bags it all up and adds the price of the carrier bag to the total. 

"Without the bag, please, Sangyeon."

Sangyeon hesitates but nods. He removes the items from the plastic bag and places them on the counter between them. And then he reads out the total. "That will be ₩9809 please."

The customer nods and withdraws his card from his wallet. But he doesn't pay right away. He looks at Sangyeon, patient, as though he is waiting for something. 

"There's an urban legend," Sangyeon says, perhaps not exactly what the customer wants but it is something. "Apparently the portals that time travellers use are really generic places that anyone could go to without realising. A popular rumour is that somewhere in this very airport there is a portal."

"That's a funny rumour," the customer says. "Do you think you'll ever find it?" 

Sangyeon doesn't quite know what to say. He is surprised that the customer is entertaining him, especially when he is looking worse for wear. He doesn't quite manage to ask where to start looking before the customer speaks over him. 

"Maybe we should look for it together. Where would you want to go when we find it?" 

Sangyeon grins. "Don't you mean 'when'?" 

The customer nods. "That too. When would you like to go after we find the portal." 

Sangyeon ponders the question for a moment before he spots a customer behind the regular. "Sorry, could you stand to the side for a moment whilst I serve the customer behind you? But I'd like you to stay for a moment, if you have the time."

The customer steps aside and Sangyeon processes the transaction as quickly as he can. Once that customer has left the only people around are Sangyeon and the customer he always sees. Sangyeon can't hide how pleased he is, but he doesn't mind. He'll change things like that next year. For now he's enjoying a novel event. 

"I think I'd like to go far into the future," Sangyeon says. "I'd like to see things I couldn't even imagine as commonplace aspects of people's lives. I'd like to see how the place we live is different. I'd like to pretend for just a moment that I've managed to live forever to get to see how humanity has advanced."

Sangyeon smiles at the customer, falters at the mist settling in the eyes staring back at him. He doesn't like the thought of upsetting someone for no reason but there is something in the face across from him, a warning not to show too much concern.

Sangyeon clears his throat, averts his eyes from the man watching him. "When would you like to go?"

The question jolts a moment of pause into the customer's face. "I don't really mind. But your idea sounds good. Let's make a pact. Whichever of us finds the portal first should take the other as far into the future as possible. Right to the end of the world."

Sangyeon laughs but he knows this isn't the makings of a new friendship. "Deal. I'll ask around and see if I can find it to take you."

"I'd like that," the customer says. 

"Have you found that time portal yet?" Sangyeon asks as he scans the raspberry slurpee and the box of nasal strips through the cash register. 

He gets an impatient scoff for his trouble. After the last visit Sangyeon had from this customer, he'd been hoping for a more positive reaction than this overt negativity. 

It isn't the interaction Sangyeon wants but he's worked in customer service long enough to know he's an easy outlet for the stresses of tired travellers. 

"Having a bad day?" 

The customer looks taken aback. He looks better physically than he did before but whatever had him awry the last time might just be taking its toll in other ways. 

"I've been having a lot of those lately," the customer says. "Bad days."

"You need to take some time out for yourself. I mean it, you should rest. Stay at home all day and order takeout. Visit some friends. Anything more relaxing than travelling all the time."

"That's not possible," the customer says. It isn't quite as curt as it means to come across but Sangyeon can't mistake the lofty air of someone inflating their own importance. 

"You're going to work yourself to death if you carry on like this though."

The customer shrugs. "So be it."

Sangyeon sighs. He's tried. It doesn't matter anyway. Even if this particular customer is one he sees too often the interaction isn't going to bother him beyond this transaction. 

"Your total comes to ₩9809," Sangyeon says brightly. The customer sighs and taps their card to pay. 

"I think it is strange how you're here every time I am yet you have the nerve to tell me about working too much."

The customer leaves. Sangyeon was wrong. Even as he smiles at the next customer in line, he's still annoyed by the man who just left. 

°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠼⠃⠚⠁⠊⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀° 

Sangyeon can quite happily say he is glad for the year to be over. Less than half of the day remains and Sangyeon is working the early shift at the convenience store. The lulls between footfalls are spent pretending to rotate stock whilst actually texting friends who have invited him to a house party to ring in the new year. He only has a couple of hours left at work but the hands on the face of his watch meander around their route and the digital clocks on the microwave and the cash register in the 7/11 aren't moving any more quickly. 

Jaehyun sighs. He sees a harried family approach with a basket of snacks and drinks. Even with a distraction like this, time isn't likely to pass quickly. 

There's the sort of stiffness in the air which only thickens to a point this obvious when Sangyeon is anticipating something. Sangyeon can't imagine what he could be waiting for to disperse the impatience fogging up his mind. 

By the time Sangyeon’s shift has ended he can feel how his facial muscles have worn down to a fatigued grimace. He might just give up on the new year's eve party he managed to get invited to altogether. But the message he gets from Chanhee in response to rescinding his RSVP is far more threatening than it needs to be. Sangyeon doesn't trust Chanhee not to break his kneecaps in exchange for refusing an invitation so he puts in the effort to go. 

Sangyeon holds the bottle of flavoured gin before him when he finds Chanhee in the kitchen taking stock of the drink situation. It does the trick to appease Chanhee who offers a fleeting hug before adding the gin to the counter filled with bottles. 

Chanhee's parties are notoriously difficult to get an invite to, yet Sangyeon is surprised at his first Chanhee party to see that the house is rammed with more people than Sangyeon thought Chanhee even knew. He ponders for a moment whether all the invitation snubs in the years before now had been Chanhee slowly warming up to Sangyeon as a friend. Just in case, Sangyeon decided he should say something to stay in Chanhee's good books. 

"You look really good."

"Thank you so much," Chanhee says as he pushes up the glasses he wears for show. "I have a boyfriend."

Sangyeon laughs. "You do realise that if you and your boyfriend break up you're supposed to stop saying that to people."

"I have another one," Chanhee lies. He's good at things like this, shameless where he needs to be, and Sangyeon wonders what it would take to channel energy like this. That being said, Sangyeon doesn't quite understand how Chanhee has had such an illustrious career in customer service when such an attitude must be a challenge to switch off. 

Chanhee fills up a plastic cup with several somethings before passing it to Sangyeon. "Drink this. I'll like you better when you're too bladdered to disagree with me having another boyfriend."

Sangyeon supposes Chanhee has warmed up to him more than he had thought. The invitation to the party isn't where things end and Sangyeon is tethered to Chanhee and fed more and more drinks until the room tilts and wobbles if he moves too suddenly. 

Sangyeon wonders whether Chanhee's parties have always been so good because he meets Chanhee's protégé (a young man with a style as eclectic as Chanhee's and a wit as unfortunately sharp), he bumps into a girl he went to school with and they take selfies together before she is swallowed into the depths of the party much further than Sangyeon’s blurring vision can make out, he falls down the stairs on his way back from the toilet and Chanhee shows him the video before sending it to everyone he knows, he tells people off for being too rowdy, and he hands out as many drinks as he can before Chanhee summons him again. 

Sangyeon has learnt from his ways and is ready to help out his current best friend when Changmin denies the existence of Chanhee's totally real new boyfriend. 

"You're wrong," Sangyeon says as he squeezes Changmin's cheeks. Changmin, as gangly and skinny as he is, has the most delightful cheeks and Sangyeon squeezes them again and watches as Changmin's irritated pout becomes a beak when Sangyeon squeezes his face together too hard. Chanhee tells Sangyeon to leave Changmin alone and that reminds Sangyeon what he intended to say in the first place. "Chanhee definitely has a new boyfriend. He's really tall and handsome and rich. I've met him. Look! There he is now."

The person Sangyeon is pointing at stares blankly back. "Whoever you're talking about, I'm not their boyfriend."

"Ew," Chanhee says as he slaps Sangyeon’s arm. "Don't tell people Jaehyun's my new boyfriend. I want people to think I have taste."

Sangyeon looks at this Jaehyun person and then back at Chanhee. "What's wrong with him? Why don't you want him to be your boyfriend?" 

"I just don't," Chanhee says. He sounds cross enough to disinvite Sangyeon from every function he ever throws again and that wouldn't be good when Sangyeon has just crossed the boundary from acquaintance to associate. Sangyeon holds Chanhee's shoulders and looks him in the eye as well as he can. 

"I'm sorry, Chanhee. I will find you a better boyfriend than that very beautiful man. It might take me a long time, but I promise you will have someone even more perfect than he is."

Chanhee frees himself from Sangyeon’s very serious and sincere grip. "No thank you. You'll just find me someone more terrible than Jaehyun."

"No!" Sangyeon says, adamant as he loops his arm around Jaehyun's shoulders. "You're not looking at him properly. How could you not want a boyfriend like him? He's handsome, he's tall, he's…" 

"He's what?" Changmin asks. 

Sangyeon blinks some clarity into his eyes and has to squint a bit before he works out the last thing that this man is. "He's rude."

"What?" 

"Oh my gosh, it's you! You're that guy who keeps coming to the 7-eleven at the airport just to be miserable and rude."

"You wanted me to say this guy was my boyfriend?" Chanhee sniffs, disappointed. 

Sangyeon is disappointed too. "Say something rude like you always do."

"I've literally never met you before in my life," Jaehyun insists. "I haven't even been on a plane since September. I don't even know your name."

"Then how can I know your name, Jaehyun?" 

"Because Chanhee just said it ten times," Jaehyun huffs. Sangyeon smiles and holds Jaehyun closer to his side. 

"See! I told you he's rude. I didn't know he was a liar too." Sangyeon reaches up to tap the top of Jaehyun’s head and is very kind as he says, "You even came into the 7-eleven where I work and called me Sangyeon with your own mouth. You know my name, Jaehyun, now say it."

Jaehyun doesn't look impressed at all, the blank expression he's wearing looks so far from cracking, but his eyes dart around before he meets Sangyeon’s gaze again. He says, "Sangyeon."

"I told you!" Sangyeon cheers. "He knows me!" 

"He doesn't know you," Chanhee says, almost kind. 

Chanhee just doesn't understand. He wasn't there that one time when Jaehyun flirted with Sangyeon, and he wasn't around for all those other times Jaehyun came to the 7-eleven to be strange and rude. But Sangyeon thinks the flirting is the most important part. 

"You're beautiful, you know. You could make a person believe anything. Like you have a face I want to trust. So even though you made me promise to go to the end of the world with you, I know you were lying," Sangyeon says. He is a big boy and he knows how not to get his hopes hurt by expectations built upon harmless flirting. Jaehyun looks too surprised to hear about it though. 

"I promised something like that?" 

"No. I just told you that you were lying," Sangyeon points out. He drops his arm from Jaehyun's shoulder and clasps their hands together. His vision blurs Jaehyun's face but Sangyeon isn't going to lean back when being this close is the best way to convey his understanding. "Just hearing a lie like that made me happy. It made me really start to wonder where the time portal at the airport is."

Jaehyun laughs. He is the one to put some space between them and it makes so much sense. He's even prettier like this and it probably isn't just the fact that his gaze is no longer helplessly skittering away from Sangyeon’s face. "You want us to travel through time together? Alright, I'll help you to find the portal."

Sangyeon presses his palms to Jaehyun's face. "Look at you. You're too beautiful. But you're such an evil liar. I almost started to believe you. You're beautiful. Super beautiful."

Nothing that he is saying could be considered incorrect. Everything sounds better when spoken by a face like Jaehyun's and Sangyeon had indulged the feeling the first time. He almost believed words that held no meaning but realisation sobers a person quickly. He'd known every time they'd met that nothing would come of it, but Sangyeon doesn't think there's anything wrong with using his imagination to live a beautiful and exciting life. 

"You're beautiful too," Jaehyun says. 

Sangyeon laughs. "You almost tricked me again! If you're like this you won't get anyone to kiss you at midnight. I'll do it just this once, but you need to be nicer so that people will want to kiss you."

Jaehyun curls his hands around Sangyeon’s and pulls them away from his face. And then he presses them against Sangyeon’s own face. 

"If I look after you, will you do it? Will you kiss me?" 

Sangyeon laughs. He tries to look around, at least for Chanhee to see if he'd be interested in a man with good qualities like this, but he can't move his head much with two sets of hands holding his face. Jaehyun's hands even cover Sangyeon’s ears to the point that the playlist curated by Chanhee's friend is too muffled to distinguish. Sangyeon can see Jaehyun's face and he can hear the steady pump of blood rushing with each beat of his heart. It is almost like being sober. Jaehyun is too good at tricks like this. 

°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠚⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

Sangyeon is still hungover by the time he turns up for his late shift on new year's day. The airport is as busy as it has ever been over the winter season with people leaving and returning for a last shot at vitamin D and Sangyeon is glad of the eventual period of quiet when he can hide in a corner and pretend to stock rotate. 

It isn't the best start to the year. Sangyeon had drank more than he'd intended yet it still wasn't enough to erase his memories of the night before. 

Sangyeon knows there is no way he was the most embarrassing person on the planet last night; hundreds and thousands of people must have been much worse, but knowing that his embarrassment means nothing is a scarce comfort. He doesn't personally know any people who behaved worse and he never even witnessed it. He only knows the details of what he did alone and that is all he can think about when the weight of his head knocks into the display of allergy medicine. 

Seeing someone, no matter how frequently, is no basis for really knowing a person. Were Sangyeon more sensible, he'd have moved on and continued to follow Chanhee around at his party as a mindless yesman. But he is an idiot so instead he made a stranger agree to kiss him even after telling the stranger how rude he was. 

Jaehyun. Sangyeon wishes he could even forget the name. If he was to be stuck remembering last night. He doesn't want to be stuck remembering the careful way Jaehyun leaned closer, held his breath for the moment Sangyeon stared at him, too close for his eyes to focus, and kissed Sangyeon. The contact was light and chaste and Sangyeon hadn't been able to breathe. But that wasn't even their first kiss - just the first one that Jaehyun initiated himself after an hour or so of Sangyeon insisting they should practise. 

Sangyeon thinks if he was only allowed to go back in time to undo one thing, telling Jaehyun that he was too rude to be a good kisser would be in his top three options. But unfortunately for Sangyeon he can't go back, and even with urban legends about time portals lurking around there isn't a way for him to change things. 

Sangyeon’s fingers fumble with a box of antihistamines and he feels really unlucky as the box skirts out of reach every time he tries to grab hold of it. But someone's shoe stops the box from getting too far. The someone picks up the box, takes one step closer and then another, crouches beside Sangyeon, and smiles. 

Sangyeon definitely wouldn't mind the ability to go back to undo everything he did before this moment. 

"Fancy seeing you here," Jaehyun says. It doesn't feel quite right to know his name, but he's not just a customer anymore. He's someone Sangyeon managed to annoy into kissing him. 

"It's more surprising to see you here," Sangyeon points out. He takes the box from Jaehyun and tries to look more alert than he feels. He needs to at least pretend he is in possession of dignity. "Isn't there anyone at the till to serve you?" 

Jaehyun presses his lips together and he pauses as though muting words that beg to be said. And then he says, "I came to see you."

"Why would you do that?" 

Jaehyun laughs, soft and quiet. It doesn't sound quite right but Sangyeon doesn't know him well enough to point it out. He could have used sense like this yesterday. 

"So you really were just doing me a favour by kissing me back then?" Jaehyun asks. "I wish I had known you'd never want to see me again before I came all the way here. You'd probably be better off for it."

Sangyeon’s head hurts, but that is no different to what he has been feeling all day. He sighs. He'll never quite understand Jaehyun, he reckons. 

"What's happening? Did you just come here to tell me not to see you again? I was sort of planning on that after I made a fool of myself yesterday."

Jaehyun squints. "You made a fool of yourself? What was it that you did?" 

"If you don't leave me alone right now I'll kiss you again," Sangyeon says. It is supposed to be a warning and Jaehyun is supposed to make the right decision and leave Sangyeon to recover from his embarrassment all alone. But Jaehyun makes himself comfortable and sits down. 

"Deal."

"You were only sure I was bluffing because I'm at work, but you should really leave me here and hope someone puts me out of my misery."

Jaehyun looks away, dips his hand into his coat pocket and withdraws a folded square of paper. He looks at the paper when he next speaks. 

"I think you should put me out of my misery and call me."

Sangyeon laughs but the sound dies quickly when Jaehyun doesn't smile. "I don't have your number."

Jaehyun nods. "You don't. And right now I'm at home, kicking myself because this guy I met was kind of weird but he was funny, and gorgeous, and he was too comfortable with me to have not known me in the way soulmates do. And right now I don't get it but I am hoping that maybe there's something that I don't understand just because I don't need to understand it. So I think, even though I made a fool of myself too, I'm waiting for a miracle to happen and the guy who doesn't have my number will find some way to get in touch with me, even if just to say hi."

Sangyeon wonders whether his hangover is just this bad. He doesn't count out the possibility that he has always been this stupid. He rubs his eyes, dry and aching from dehydration and the overly diligent fans blowing air around the shop, or simply drinking too many of Chanhee's mystery cocktails the night before. Jaehyun is still there, sitting on the scuffed tiles of the 7-eleven floor, and looking for all the world like he's said something sensible. 

So he gives in. "What?" he asks. 

"I've had some time to think things over," Jaehyun says. "If you knew the things I know you'd probably tell me I am being selfish, and I am being extremely selfish. But five years ago a miracle happened for me and I am hoping that if I can work out the answer I'll be allowed to have another miracle."

Sangyeon definitely doesn't get it, and he wonders whether he ever will. But a small part of him hopes that he isn't the victim of a long con. "Did you find the portal at the airport? Is it real?" 

"Unfortunately, yes."

Sangyeon can't help the scoff which erupts out of him. "Please. You should have heard yourself yesterday after you got me to explain how we first met, you wouldn't shut up about time travel. You're excited about it, I know. You don't have to lie."

Jaehyun sighs. "I'm aware."

Sangyeon looks at Jaehyun. He wonders what it is that is really happening here. Jaehyun could be a liar or deluded or any number of other things which would make knowing him a bad idea. But he might also be telling the truth. Leaving aside any of his own delusions about falling in love, Sangyeon quite likes the idea that he's living in a world where adventures happen to people like him. So he ignores the ache behind his eyes and pretends he's as fresh and cheery as any other day - adventures don't come to people turning away from the world. 

He plucks the folded paper from between Jaehyun's fingers. "Is this your number?" 

"Yes."

"I'll call you. Probably," Sangyeon says. "I can't promise I won't change my mind and palm you off on one of my friends though."

Jaehyun smiles, and it is nice to see even if he doesn't completely mean it. "Do what you want. Break his heart, even. I've already met you."

Sangyeon folds the paper against the palm of his hand and wonders whether this could be as simple as that. 

°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠚⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

Sangyeon, as much bravado as he likes to use to mask chagrin, takes almost an entire month to call Jaehyun. 

Some part of Sangyeon feels like this is the last stage of a prank that will disarm itself if he leaves it long enough. Another part thinks that Jaehyun is just bored and wants to test out just how weird he can get with some pick-up artistry. The most significant consideration for Sangyeon is the possibility that he is so lonely from being single for so long that the sensible areas of his brain have rotted away and fabricated Jaehyun so that he believes there is more than just solitude waiting for him at the end of a workday. 

Jaehyun not existing at all is the most likely scenario even if Sangyeon keeps the folded slip of paper purported to contain Jaehyun's phone number with him at all times. He doesn't open the paper so Sangyeon could have even picked up a discarded receipt and brainwashed himself into giving it the status of a talisman in his life. Chanhee reminding Sangyeon of Jaehyun whenever they talk is a bit harder to explain away. 

Sangyeon is tired of Chanhee pretending to show interest in his life by asking where his wedding invitation is. It isn't funny and it is just another reminder that Sangyeon couldn't be further from a possibility like that. But somehow he lets slip about Jaehyun coming to see him and Chanhee is incredibly invested in seeing this turn into a successful matchmaking story to tell people. 

The only reason Sangyeon does eventually give in and open the piece of paper (which changes trousers as often as he does) is so he can send a proof shot to Chanhee that he has no right to brag about setting anyone up. But the paper isn't blank. The paper isn't a receipt either. 

Sangyeon wonders whether anyone else would recognise the handwriting on the paper, but he doubts it. There aren't too many people who pay such close attention to penmanship, but Sangyeon is paying enough attention to this to wonder why numbers written by Jaehyun's hand look as careless as numbers Sangyeon would write. Looking at the paper so often to inspect the similarities between these numbers and the samples he scribbles out himself on scraps of till-roll in the lulls of his work days is enough that Sangyeon practically knows the number by heart and the digits float menacingly into his dreams. 

Sangyeon eventually dials the number into his phone whilst on break at work. He decides whilst the phone is ringing that he wouldn't save the number even if it really is Jaehyun. There won't be any need because it isn't a sincere offer anyway. 

But the voice that answers the phone is familiar in ways it shouldn't be and Sangyeon struggles to string two words together. 

"Hello?" Jaehyun asks again, louder so that the bemusement crackles through the connection. "Hello? If this is something important, I don't think your phone is working so you should try another way. If you're a telemarketer I'm not interested."

"I'm not either of those," Sangyeon says on the back of the cough which unsticks his throat. He doesn't quite know how to categorise himself in a way which isn't too uncomfortable. He has never had to be anything to a person like this before. 

"Who is this?" Jaehyun asks in the pocket of Sangyeon’s pondering. 

"Hi, Jaehyun, it's Sangyeon." That doesn't get a response and there is no reason why it should. It is better to briefly explain things so Jaehyun needn't contemplate the 'why's of the situation, so Sangyeon adds, "We met at new year's. Chanhee's party. I don't know if you'd remember or really care a month on, but I just thought I'd give you a call. I didn't think you'd answer."

Sangyeon pulls the phone just shy of his ear. He doesn't need to hear the pauses the way he does right now. It will be quicker to hang up that way too. 

"You actually called me? How? Did you dial every number until you reached mine?" 

Sangyeon laughs. He hears the stiffness in his tone, but he knows he deserves it. "I don't think I would ever have found you like that."

Even if Jaehyun points out the length of time between the day they met and the day Sangyeon called, dialing every combination of digits still wouldn't have ended with success. But Sangyeon wonders whether, in another lifetime where a mirage never offered a lifeline to his failing lovelife, putting in impossible effort would be worth it too. 

Sangyeon doesn't quite know how it happens in this lifetime though. Jaehyun claims happiness as easily as he points out how making contact with each other would never make sense to him, and says he is curious to visit the place he's allegedly been to enough times for Sangyeon to decide they're acquainted. 

Sangyeon’s break ends too soon so he needs to hang up on the person who has frequently visited his thoughts ever since that first time. It doesn't put an end to Jaehyun's residence in Sangyeon’s mind. 

It is a little over a week after the phone call that the customer walks into the 7-eleven. Except, after only meeting once, Sangyeon can see this is undoubtedly Jaehyun. The stroll isn't quite as effortless as intended and Jaehyun does an awful job of pretending he is here for any reason besides seeing Sangyeon. There aren't too many occasions when driving all the way to the airport for the sake of a convenience store would make any sense. 

"Why are you here?" Sangyeon asks once Jaehyun has given up on pretending to be a customer. 

"I knew it. All this time you've been calling me rude when you're actually the one who is rude. Customers get shirty with you, don't they?" 

"What?" 

"Even if we had met before, the only reason I would have been rude to you is because you speak to customers like that," Jaehyun says. He leans onto the counter and smiles up at Sangyeon. And then he realises that Sangyeon was really asking a question. "I told you I was coming to see you. We've been texting all week and I kept saying I was coming to visit you at work."

"I thought you were joking."

"Do you want me to leave?" 

Sangyeon grabs Jaehyun's wrist but remembers himself before bothering to say that he doesn't want Jaehyun to go. He releases Jaehyun's arm and keeps his hands to himself at the edge of the counter. "It would be a waste after you made the effort to come here."

Jaehyun looks happy enough with that answer. He looks around the shop, checking it is quiet enough for him to really be a nuisance, and asks Sangyeon what he usually does here. Sangyeon knows his job isn't interesting and Jaehyun is only asking for the sake of politeness but he explains enough that he tires of the sound of his own voice. 

Sangyeon is grateful for a customer shuffling up to the till to pay for their items. Jaehyun moves aside and stands patiently while Sangyeon forces enough smalltalk with this customer that the amount of attention he's paying to Jaehyun doesn't seem weird. 

Sangyeon tells the customer that even if they're dreading a trip to America it is too late to regret it at the airport. The customer laughs and Sangyeon tells a secret for making friends. The customer pays, cash, hands touching too much to be accidental before the customer tells Sangyeon that he's glad they've met, maybe they'll even meet upon the customer's return. 

The way the customer lingers after the transaction and hints at maybe seeing each other again is weird, Sangyeon can see that much, but customer service is seldom about pointing that out to customers directly. He probably should have said something about the dirty look the customer gave to Jaehyun before leaving. 

"You saw that, right?" Jaehyun asks. "If you see him again you'd better tell him that you're going to be taken very soon and there's nothing he can do about it."

Sangyeon laughs, wonders why he doesn't mind a joke like that so much, and tells Jaehyun that at least that guy wasn't loitering. Jaehyun makes a big fuss about the difference in treatment and loudly narrates his search around the aisles for the cheapest possible item to justify his presence. 

Having Jaehyun around is comfortable, even though they've just met, even though Sangyeon still has Jaehyun's phone number on a folded square of paper in his pocket. Sangyeon removes the paper from his pocket and turns it over on the counter. He'll save Jaehyun's number and just see what happens. Things might turn out well for them. Even if they're simply destined to meet and part so soon he is happy with getting to spend this much time that feels like a thrill. After all, Sangyeon has never had anyone else narrating their struggle to find a reasonable excuse to bother him at work. But he's also never been quite so unsettled waiting for reality to knock him back to where he should be. 

Something just outside the shop doorway catches Sangyeon’s eye without Jaehyun in view. Sangyeon doesn't look to see the cause of any movement, rather he looks to see why there is something static outside at all when the wide walkway around the second floor of the terminal is directing the flow of tourists and holidaymakers alike. 

The customer from a few moments ago is standing just shy of the doorway, watching Sangyeon. There is something off about him but Sangyeon doesn't want to dwell on something that sets him on edge in a way that it shouldn't. Jaehyun shouts Sangyeon’s name, asks if he is listening, and complains about not getting the same level of attention as some of Sangyeon’s other customers. He's annoying, and Sangyeon wonders whether he'd even be allowed to tell him as much one day. 

Sangyeon finds Jaehyun leaning over the chest freezer at the back of the shop and he waves an ice lolly in Sangyeon’s face. This is far different from the discomfort of the other customer and it is hard to say which is preferable. 

"Choose one. My treat."

Sangyeon laughs and peers into the freezer dubiously. "I thought you wanted to buy the cheapest thing. This is definitely the wrong place to find it. You know the markup on these is daylight robbery. Just buy something when you're at home."

"Everything is overpriced so I might as well get something nice out of this robbery. And if I'm going to get robbed there's nobody I would rather do it than you," Jaehyun says, fluttering his eyelashes. Sangyeon laughs but he wonders if feeling oddly exposed by each word Jaehyun says is his own fault. Sangyeon is the one who claimed to know Jaehyun first and now he must bear the consequences of feeling the pressure of additional eyes falling onto him each time they talk. The flirting, unsurprisingly, doesn't alleviate that sensation. 

"You shouldn't say that. If you trust me too much, who knows what I could end up stealing."

"I can think of one thing just waiting for you to steal it," Jaehyun says, irony saturating his tone as he digs into the freezer to find an ice cream lolly with concentric hearts expanding across the wrapper. He passes the lolly to Sangyeon. 

Sangyeon laughs, hates how he genuinely finds Jaehyun funny. "I'm not stealing from work."

"Don't you get employee benefits as good as that? What's the point in working here without getting free stuff?" 

Sangyeon tosses the ice lolly back into the freezer. "You telling me that you struggle to keep a job makes so much sense now. Maybe if you stopped nicking things you'd be able to earn money."

"Nah, that can't be it."

There is confidence in Jaehyun's grin and Sangyeon almost hates it. And then Jaehyun is shuffling closer as a tiny woman with rose-tinted hair and a cheery smile rounding her delicate face asks him to move out of the way. 

The woman finds the ice cream she was looking for and waves at Jaehyun before making her way up to the counter. Sangyeon supposes he should go to the till to serve her even though Jaehyun grabs his wrist to keep him still. 

"Did you hear her say my name?" Jaehyun asks cautiously. 

Sangyeon can't remember. He shrugs but Jaehyun's eyes are still a shade too wide. Maybe she did say Jaehyun's name. "You might have misheard."

"That's kind of weird. First you and now her. How many people are going to somehow know me?" 

Jaehyun keeps looking back in the direction that the woman left in. As much as Sangyeon needs to do some work he doesn't want to leave Jaehyun with such concern in his face. He tries to be serious when Jaehyun looks at him at him again. He says, "Maybe she'll be the next person you kiss." 

Jaehyun laughs, surprise more evident in the sound than genuine amusement, and Sangyeon is satisfied with that much. He really does need to get back to work. 

The woman is waiting patiently at the till and Sangyeon apologises for the delay. The woman waves off the concern with a smile and smalltalk in an accent that Sangyeon can't quite place. 

The woman is just buying an ice cream, nothing that Sangyeon can say is unusual enough that he'd remember every time it has happened, but the sense of deja vu he gets when reading out the total has the words catching on Sangyeon’s lips. The woman pays, tells Sangyeon to have a good day and she will see him next time. She leaves. Jaehyun sidles up to the till with two canned coffees and picks up a roll of mints from the counter. Sangyeon almost doesn't want to be overheard saying the price aloud, but it would be strange not to. 

"You really don't have to buy anything from here."

"I'm not going to come here for our first date and not buy you anything."

Sangyeon sighs. "That will be ₩9809."

When Jaehyun pays it is as though the numbers mean nothing to him and Sangyeon supposes he has been searching for patterns where there is no need. He needs to shake the uneasiness and wonders how much trouble he'd get in for drinking the coffee whilst on shift. 

Jaehyun passes the can to Sangyeon and refusing it would be rude so Sangyeon grips it in his hands. 

"Jaehyun, you know that woman from before?" 

"What about her?" 

"I think she might be a time traveller. She knew my name somehow too."

Jaehyun's eyes widen and his gaze flickers down to the nametag on Sangyeon’s chest. Realisation hits and he snatches the coffee from Sangyeon’s hands. 

"You can have this back when you stop being a smart-arse."

Sangyeon laughs. He isn't too bothered about getting the coffee back. Things are nice like this though. Sangyeon is glad he called Jaehyun, glad that they could meet in the first place, and he hopes that maybe they'll get to see each other again. 

°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠁⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

According to Jaehyun, his anniversary with Sangyeon has passed by the time he gets accepted to the time travel academy. He insists that their anniversary falls on the last day of the year but Sangyeon has never seen the logic in that. 

Even if Sangyeon met Jaehyun on the last day of the year, it took Sangyeon almost a month to call Jaehyun for the first time and it took two more months ending before Sangyeon asked Jaehyun to be his boyfriend. Realistically their anniversary is in April but Sangyeon pretends he can't remember the exact date so he assumes that is why Jaehyun sticks with a date so long before they officially were together. 

The day they first got together isn't particularly relevant most of the time, but on the odd occasion Jaehyun will bring it up in front of people and frame it in such a way that Sangyeon can't dispute it. 

"I couldn't have done all of this without the support of my wonderful boyfriend and soulmate. We were fated to meet on the eve of the new year and…"

Everyone gives Jaehyun a moment to gather himself before telling him to sit down. He takes his seat at the table beside Sangyeon and leans onto his shoulder heavily. He's had too much to drink just like he has every time he has given this speech. It is more impressive that he was able to forget how the rest of it goes. 

Sangyeon has had enough to drink that he doesn't mind indulging Jaehyun just a little bit. "And we've been together ever since. I know that great things are going to come our way as we grow old together."

Jaehyun lifts his head and looks at Sangyeon with far too much inebriated emotion. He presses his hands to Sangyeon’s cheeks, his hands covering enough of Sangyeon’s ears that the sound of everyone else's chatter blurs into silence. Sangyeon can hear the rushing of blood in his ears and he can hear Jaehyun. 

"We really are soulmates," Jaehyun says, voice choked up with wonder. "We finish each other's-" 

"Sentences," Sangyeon says quickly. 

"Stop it," Jaehyun says fondly. "I love you."

"I love you too," Sangyeon says. He doesn't think he will ever bring up the fact that he has heard Jaehyun overflowing with pride in front of both of their families on separate occasions and various combinations of their friends. He loves Jaehyun even if letting him reach this point of intoxication is met in the mornings after by Jaehyun complaining about what Fun Sangyeon let him do. 

Sangyeon likes the idea of adventure. Sangyeon also likes Jaehyun, though he does get jealous of both Jaehyun and the concept of adventure for getting to have each other. 

"Some things are fated," Jaehyun had said when Sangyeon pointed out how strange it was that he'd been drawn onto a path which runs parallel to the mundane of Sangyeon’s life. 

Fate sounds a lot like laziness when Sangyeon considers how Jaehyun's apparent interest in time travel blooms in time for him to finesse his way into a training academy for the impossible. What are the chances that Sangyeon could meet a person who he'd seen in hundreds of lives not lived as a time traveller and know them long enough to see them fulfill their own prophecy? 

Sangyeon has always been in the right place but he just hadn't been lucky enough to pick up the right leaflet, take a wrong turn when someone points out that they spend too much time at an airport 7-eleven, challenged a stranger who greeted them by name, and found out they had been scouted by an agency which sounds more hoax that reality. But Sangyeon is happy that Jaehyun gets to be that lucky. 

The job at the end of the three year training programme still sounds too difficult to believe even when Jaehyun brought the Hemsut academy brochure when he visited Sangyeon on a midweek evening before his admission. 

The brochure was vague back when Sangyeon first saw it and now, months after Jaehyun had proudly proclaimed, "It's like being a cop but I'm not a bastard," the brochure is just as vague and nonsensical as ever. 

Jaehyun might not be a cop but he's definitely a bastard. There's a number scribbled on one of the pages in the brochure and Sangyeon can't quite work out why. He folds back the pages of the brochure and takes it with him when he leaves the living room to find Jaehyun. 

"Hey, what's this?" 

"Get out!" Jaehyun yells as he throws the hand towel at Sangyeon. "I am literally using the toilet right now!" 

"Yeah, cool. But moving on from that, what is this number you've written in here?" Sangyeon pushes the pages of the brochure right against Jaehyun's face. And then he reaches for the air freshener. "I can't believe you keep coming over to my place just to use the toilet."

"That's definitely the only reason," Jaehyun says as he winces away from the shower of scented spray. "What's wrong with this number?" 

Jaehyun's question sounds guarded, and Sangyeon isn't sure whether he's allowed to be so certain of something he isn't entirely familiar with. He leans against the bathroom door and is careful with his phrasing. "I have seen that number a lot. I don't understand why you've written it here?" 

Jaehyun closes the brochure. "Does it matter? It's just a work thing."

"I'm not trying to start anything. I just want to know about this one thing. I know there's a lot you can't tell me, but this number is weird."

"Time isn't real," Jaehyun says. "So we have to create our own relative coordinates to enter or leave a place. And it needs to be something easy to remember and easy to make. Like the first time I bought something from your 7-eleven. The conditions at your 7-eleven are good enough to make the portal work and the number is easy to make. I thought that I could always remember it so that I could find my way back to you. Or that 7-eleven. Whatever."

Whatever indeed. Jaehyun looks away and reaches for the towel hanging over the radiator and twists it ready to whip Sangyeon with it. The improvised weapon doesn't serve him too well.

"Kind of weird to pick a number so randomly." 

"Cool, it's weird, get out." Jaehyun insists as he waves the towel at Sangyeon menacingly. Of course he isn't menacing at all whilst sitting on the toilet. So Sangyeon has more time to poke fun at something he can't entirely understand. He doesn't need to understand everything about Jaehyun's life at the academy but he can't help but ascribe meaning to things that seem that they should be understandable. 

"Oh my gosh," Sangyeon says. "You want to come back to me. You love me."

"Yes? You already know that! Get out!" 

"But you love me, Jaehyun," Sangyeon points out. "You love me love me, so you made this weird important thing about me!" 

A retort of sorts finds its way into Jaehyun’s mouth, Sangyeon can tell that much, but the words don't get any further. Instead Jaehyun tells Sangyeon to get out of the bathroom and Sangyeon listens on this occasion. 

Realistically, Sangyeon knows he could be putting too much meaning onto instances of little import, but that doesn't prevent him from thinking about them near constantly. 

At work he wonders how often customers he doesn't think too much about might be calculating the price of coordinates. The patterns don't emerge the way Sangyeon hopes but too many faces blend out the significance of familiarity. Sangyeon isn't sure how he recognised Jaehyun during his visits because nobody else stands out particularly well. But there are people who carry mobile phones from years past and mobile phones which Sangyeon swears project flimsy banners centimetres above the screen before the user remembers where they are. Sangyeon sees people with strange fashions and large bags which are effortlessly light and strange coins and tokens amongst the ones they pick from their wallets to hand over to Sangyeon. And strange contact lenses too. An iris containing a pastel nebula blooms on the eye of a woman whose hair is the same colour as the early spring's blushing dawn. She looks familiar. 

"Hi," Sangyeon says as he's scanning the woman's items. "I've seen you a few times before. I think you know my friend."

The woman tilts her head and tucks her hair behind her ear. "Your friend? Who is that?" 

"Jaehyun. He's maybe in a similar line of work to you."

"Oh, that's interesting," the woman says, careful deliberation in every syllable. "What work is that?" 

Sangyeon hesitates around his reply. There's something about this woman which is leaking anachronism into the 7/11 and he hadn't quite realised it before. He glances at the clock in the bottom right corner of the cash register screen. Whatever the clock is showing, it isn't the time. Sangyeon looks back up at the woman and wonders how many times he has seen her standing in that spot and how many more times he might see her elsewhere. 

And then Sangyeon wonders whether voicing a thought is enough to give it the weight of truth. 

Sangyeon has seen glimpses of Jaehyun’s reports and assignments which have ushered in foul moods and endless complaining that he can't get any work done whilst Sangyeon is around (even though Jaehyun is the one inviting himself to sit in various nooks and crannies of Sangyeon's flat with his laptop). He has seen points of debate and coursework which compares and contrasts different types of time whilst proofreading but he has never really understood it. But for a moment, he considers that things he doesn't understand might apply to him. 

If an event is an indisputable fact witnessed by all those present it becomes the consensus. If the consensus is accepted without the colours of opinion it becomes fixed. But fixing things makes them vital instances for the events which follow and negates the necessity of the qualifying conditions being met beforehand. If an event is fixed it must happen no matter what even if someone goes back to change the things before it. If an event is fixed it must occur so that the events which follow can also exist. 

Jaehyun once tried to explain the way the recording and mere existence of time sparks infinite paradoxes but Sangyeon had only been half-listening. Some fledgling understanding would have been useful at least just for this moment. 

"If I say what I think," Sangyeon asks, just as careful as the woman when she spoke, "What exactly am I fixing?" 

The smile that stretches across the woman's face is slow but there is nothing unkind in her humour. "Perhaps nothing. But wouldn't it be nice if you were fixing something like being able to save someone?" 

"I don't think there is anything I could do to save you," Sangyeon points out. 

The woman chuckles. "Perhaps you're right. Not me. But someone needs you to be kind. You can save someone that way."

"You're not going to tell me specifically who, are you?" 

"No," the woman agrees. "If I tell you, you might end up being too kind and you might fix something else. But I know that you're going to be kind to that person anyway."

"Does that mean it is technically fixed?" 

The woman takes it as a joke. She laughs again and pays for her items, a totally random price of ₩9809. "That's on you, Sangyeon, you can ultimately decide. But I did actually come here to fix something. My name is Vivi and I am going to save your life."

Sangyeon laughs, because it seems like he is supposed to, and Vivi tells Sangyeon that they'll meet again. It is enough to confirm to Sangyeon that she is a time traveller, but just in case he'd missed her hint the clocks blink on after she leaves. Or perhaps the clocks were already on. Sangyeon watches his entire shift pass before he gets to leave despite being certain he'd worked seven hours prior to Vivi's arrival at the 7/11.

Too much about the day is too vague for Sangyeon to make sense of it but he's going to keep an eye out for Vivi's return. 

Sangyeon doesn't really know the people Jaehyun spends his time with. He knows names and funny things they have said (and even more funny things they have heard Jaehyun say), but he doesn't really know them. As well as not knowing these people there is another side of Jaehyun who Sangyeon doesn't know either. That Jaehyun might be studious and conscientious, or funny, or a slacker, or a ringleader, or a reliable and supportive friend. Sangyeon can't really determine the role from the anecdotes he hears and every single person he hears about is a stranger. He can admit he has been feeling jealousy over the fact, especially after hearing that some assignments will have Jaehyun spending weeks away from home with his team once he is a fully qualified time traveller. But he won't say even this much to Jaehyun. There is no point in wishing Jaehyun could give him more warning before heading out for work drinks instead of making himself available for plans that were never to be more than wishful thinking. 

The invitation to a new year's party is nice. Sangyeon pretends he's not too bothered by it despite having to wait nine months of hearing names without context prior to this opportunity. 

"Do you not want to come?" Jaehyun asks as they're eating dinner two weeks before the new year. Jaehyun clears his throat and reaches for a napkin and dabs at his mouth. "Everyone is excited to finally meet you."

"I suppose if there are so many expectations I'll have to make the effort to come."

"Thank you," Jaehyun says, relief spilling from his lips. "I'll make it up to you."

Sangyeon doesn't wonder how Jaehyun intends to make things up to him. He just sticks to trying to work out how he'll make things up to Jaehyun instead. He starts off by making sure they're organised for the party and arrive with plenty of time. But it doesn't go so well when roadworks mix with bad weather and they're late after walking through the rain-soaked streets to the hotel where they're supposed to meet Jaehyun's colleagues.

The hand dryers in the toilets are weak and whilst pulling the shirt away from his skin towards the blast of hot air Sangyeon smells the element in the dryers singe long before his clothes are close to being dry. 

"Why don't you just take it off?" Jaehyun asks as he strokes his hands over the sodden material clinging to Sangyeon’s shoulders. 

"I'm not taking my shirt off here when anyone could walk in," Sangyeon points out. Despite his irate tone, Jaehyun continues gripping onto Sangyeon’s arms. He's being a nuisance rather than helping Sangyeon to dry his clothes. He crowds closer and rests his chin on Sangyeon’s shoulder. 

"Can't I change your mind?" 

"If you're not going to be helpful you should just go out to have fun with your friends," Sangyeon mutters as the dryer stops. He shuffles to lean under the dryer and it starts up again. And under the racket of the blasting air Jaehyun speaks right into Sangyeon’s ear. 

"I was only thinking I should give you my shirt seeing as I have a jacket fancy enough to wear alone, but now that you've brought it up we could sack the party off altogether."

Sangyeon laughs, leans into Jaehyun's hold, but decides against accepting the offer which accompanies the jest. 

"Go out there and make an excuse for me," Sangyeon says. "I'll keep drying this and then I'll come out with you. Give me ten minutes."

Jaehyun sighs and withdraws his phone from his pocket and blows a kiss.

"I'm setting a timer on my phone now. If you're not out there for me to show off to everyone in ten minutes then I'm filing for divorce."

Jaehyun makes a show of lingering but eventually leaves. Sangyeon is glad when he is alone. He needs to focus on drying his shirt and he can't dwell on things like divorce and the implications of what comes before it. 

Sangyeon is avoiding thinking about marriage so hard that it takes someone several attempts to get his attention. 

"Could I use the handdryer too, please?" 

"Of course. Sorry."

The man standing at the dryer beside Sangyeon is around the same height as him and is about as drenched. He looks miserable and Sangyeon wonders whether he'd have felt the same without Jaehyun annoying him into good humour. 

"I would have thought the rain had stopped by now," Sangyeon says. "Did you just arrive?" 

The man glances peripherally at Sangyeon and after a moment looks around the room to find only mirrors and tiles. The dryers both stop and the man returns his gaze to Sangyeon. 

"Me?" 

Sangyeon nods, smiling despite himself. The man looks thoughtful for a moment. 

"It is still raining. You don't attend the academy. Are you somebody's friend?" 

"That's right. I've heard so many random stories about everyone that I have actually been looking forward to meeting the other trainees and seeing what everyone is like. What's your name?" 

A pause. A flicker of a reluctant gaze. "Longguo."

Sangyeon unfortunately knows the name but he decides not to react like he has ever heard it before. He has built up a vicarious dislike for someone he had never met until this moment simply for petty reasons filtered through Jaehyun's opinion. But even a person like this deserves a chance at redemption. 

"It's nice to meet you, Longguo. How did you come to become a trainee at the academy?" 

Longguo doesn't quite look as though he knows the answer but Sangyeon is patient and he finally gets a response. 

"It was something that I just had to do. Someone handed me a flyer with the application information and it sounded like a good fit."

"So it was like a calling?" 

Longguo shrugs. Sangyeon supposes it feels like that for most people. He's never even asked Jaehyun, only rolled his eyes at the insistence that regulating time travel has always been his destiny, but it must be like a lot of other jobs without obvious draws. 

"So, Longguo, what do you do when you're not studying or getting rained on?" 

"Nothing interesting."

Longguo is difficult. He's irritating in different ways to the ones Jaehyun complains about but at the end of the day it might just be that he's not used to anyone taking a genuine interest in him. Hearing that Longguo is rude and petty and gloomy takes on a new perspective as they dry off together and Sangyeon successfully coaxes actual information from him. 

By the time they're both dry, which seems like it could be long after the ten minute limit Jaehyun gave to Sangyeon, they manage to get out of the toilets and into the hotel function room. 

Glittering lights hang at the windows in streams and ropes of lights line the bar and the multiple pillars in the room. It looks nice, but is just about blinding enough that Sangyeon can't immediately find Jaehyun. 

"Would you like a drink?" Longguo asks. "You know, as thanks for helping me to dry off." 

There's not much point in refusing and Sangyeon is a fan of free things and he likes it even more when one drink is joined by shots and Longguo even tries some jokes. He's not funny at all but Sangyeon likes the effort being put into the jokes which accompany the next round of shots. It makes Sangyeon want to try harder with his impressions and he can tell Longguo really thinks he is funny. 

Sangyeon is pulled away from his next drink but he's not as disappointed as he could have been. 

"Jaehyun, you made it!" 

"Oh, great! Fun Sangyeon is here," Jaehyun says less enthusiastically than he could do. He tilts Sangyeon’s face up to get a full view of his disappointment. "What happened, where did you go?" 

"I have a friend. He's not as bad as you say, Jaehyun. Longguo is my funny friend."

Jaehyun goes quiet and Sangyeon hugs him because that usually works to make him unquiet again. 

"You two know each other?" 

Longguo's voice has a note of something that makes Sangyeon want to hold Jaehyun tighter. But even that doesn't dispel the feeling in his chest. 

"I wish I'd have known that the two of you were friends before."

"He's my boyfriend," Jaehyun says. 

"Oh. That's weird. Was this a prank?" 

It is a strange thing to think and Sangyeon can't imagine why that would be the first thing Longguo could think of. They were getting to know each other, and Sangyeon was having a good time. It wouldn't really make sense as a prank because there's nothing to laugh about when the reservation on Longguo's face is stark against the backdrop of indulgence. 

"It wasn't a prank. I like you. It is like we've known each other forever."

Jaehyun scoffs but makes sure not to look at Sangyeon when he speaks. "Come on, Sangyeon, we've got somewhere to be. Sorry about the bother, Longguo."

Jaehyun isn't the best actor. At least Sangyeon has always been able to read the expressions on his face and the set of his stance. It isn't likely that anyone would need to know Jaehyun particularly well to see that he isn't happy as they make their way through the people packed into the hotel bar. If Sangyeon hadn't already known, the message comes loud and clear when Jaehyun suddenly stops and pulls Sangyeon closer with an agitated grip around his wrist. 

"You ignored my calls and when I tried to find you in the toilets you were gone."

It is a statement but even if hearing it makes Sangyeon realise something, the words alone don't ask for a response. But who is Sangyeon if not someone who responds just to see Jaehyun react. 

"I must have lost track of time. Have you filed for divorce yet?"

"You said ten minutes. I gave you some extra time because I didn't want you to stay wet and uncomfortable, and I wanted you to feel happy around my friends. But you were with him. Why were you talking to Longguo? He's dangerous. You know I hate him."

Sangyeon would love to dwell on the sweeter implications of Jaehyun worrying but not all of those worries have the sturdiest of foundations. 

"How is he dangerous? He's just a trainee like you."

"Obviously I can't tell you that," Jaehyun says, tightening the hold he has on Sangyeon’s wrist. "Please just take my word for it. He's done some sketchy stuff during assignments. I accepted all that stuff about you knowing me before we met, so please just trust me on this."

Sangyeon considers the point and tells Jaehyun he agrees. Jaehyun still looks spare but he releases Sangyeon’s wrist to hold his hand and thanks him quietly. 

Jaehyun's friends are nice. They have a table against the wall and Sangyeon supposes that, if not for the crowded party guests, they would be able to see the sprawling cityscape through the strings of lights hanging at the windows. But the view isn't the point here. 

Sooyoung introduces herself with an endearing smile and the claim that she has heard so much about Sangyeon. She gestures to the reserved-looking woman beside her loudly with pride dripping from her eyes. 

"Haseul is already a qualified time traveller. She did a trade apprenticeship after leaving school instead of joining the academy like we did. Getting her out of her big fancy laboratory is a special occasion. Haseul works harder than anyone on the planet!"

"Why do you have to introduce me like that every time?" Haseul asks as she smiles shyly. 

"Because you're amazing and people should know that as soon as they meet you."

"Then they should know it without you saying anything," another of the women at the table says. Jinsol, Sangyeon thinks, but Jaehyun reeled the names off too quickly for a degree of total certainty. She absently sweeps her hair over her shoulder and gestures towards her empty glass. "What you should tell people is how awful you are to let me and Haseul go thirsty."

Two of the women whose names Sangyeon has already forgotten burst into laughter at the way Sooyoung glares. He'll have to ask again once they have recovered from the joke. 

The sixth of the women at the table begins to stand and beckons the others to pass over their empty glasses. Sangyeon at least remembers her as Gyeongwon. Her birthday is the day after Sangyeon’s and Jaehyun had introduced them very briefly when videochatting before leaving on a week-long training camp. They still haven't made up the plans for the belated birthday dinner, but Sangyeon is at least glad to be confident in identifying one of the people Jaehyun works with. 

"I'll get the next round," Gyeongwon says. She takes as many empty glasses as she can hold even though it starts a debate over waiting for one of the waiting staff to take away the empties. 

Jaehyun is quiet and Sangyeon watches as he types something out on his phone and then places it facedown on the table. He looks up at Sangyeon expectantly. 

Some part of this is an act for Sangyeon as he reaches for his own pocket, empty. He smiles at Jaehyun and pats his knee in a way that might have been reassuring if Jaehyun was willing to accept it as such. But Sangyeon doesn't hang around to find out the verdict. He stands up and gathers the remaining empty glasses in his hands. 

"I'll help you, Gyeongwon."

Gyeongwon sighs with relief and follows as Sangyeon leads the way to the bar. They manage to eke out a small amount of space to return the empty glasses but the dense crowd closes ranks to prevent them from being close enough to attract the attention of the bar staff. But Gyeongwon doesn't look too disappointed. 

"I'm glad you could come today," she says, leaning close so her voice manages to reach his ears. "Jaehyun has a lot of stories about you. I feel almost like we've met before too. He makes it sound like meeting you was fate."

"It was. I would never have met him if I hadn't gone to a new year's party for once."

Sangyeon can't even imagine where he would be if he had spent the year with family to invade their last-minute plans, or spent it alone like he was more likely to have done. He quite liked the way he could walk into Chanhee's party last year just to be smug and show off his boyfriend. This year doesn't feel any less smug even if all the people at this party are strangers. 

But Gyeongwon frowns. "Didn't you meet before that? Jaehyun said you worked at the airport."

Sangyeon hesitates around a laugh. "Oh, he said that? I don't really count all those times we met. I'll tell you a secret, he wasn't very nice to me until we met at the party."

"Really? He makes himself sound so much better in those stories. He said he was courting you for a while. I'll have to tell him off for lying to us," Gyeongwon says. She tucks her hair behind her ear, the shell of it empty but a reminder of something he'd noticed the first time he saw her. 

"Is it the other ear that you've pierced? You have quite a lot of piercings so I wondered whether they hurt."

"Hm?" Gyeongwon reaches to feel both of her ears and points at her exposed ear. "No, it is just this one. I only have the two of them."

"When you and Jaehyun called me in November it looked like you had more." 

"Did we call you?" Gyeongwon asks. "I don't remember anything like that. Jaehyun must have introduced you to someone else."

Sangyeon doesn't think that saying more would make the situation any clearer. He remembers it happened. He just doesn't quite understand how he is misremembering so much. 

"It was the day before your birthday," Sangyeon says. "You were all on a residential training trip and Jaehyun videocalled me."

"Maybe," Gyeongwon decides, her tone suggesting a 'not' silently follows her answer. She peers through the crowd at the bar. "We'll never get served at this rate."

They have time. Sangyeon slips his wallet from his pocket and hands his debit card to Gyeongwon. "Gyeongwon, here's my card. I'm just popping to the loo. The pin is 8282."

"8282? You're just asking to get scammed."

Sangyeon laughs but he doesn't imagine Gyeongwon would scam him even if he's not sure of anything about her anymore. He heads to the toilets but doesn't find his phone on any of the surfaces or in any of the cubicles. He isn't sure how he can get around this situation without admitting that he can't remember the last time he had his phone today. 

Sangyeon heads back out to the bar but can't quite imagine where to start looking for his phone. But someone finds him looking gormless. 

"Are you alright?" 

"No," Sangyeon says, wondering why he is so relieved to see someone he was warned away from so recently. "I lost my phone."

"I'll help you to find it if you'd like."

"You really would?" Sangyeon asks. Longguo shrugs like it isn't a big deal and Sangyeon wonders why he seems like so much of a hero compared to the anecdotes that Jaehyun has told. 

The pair of them look as well as they can and it is when Sangyeon is giving up hope of ever being able to plot the trajectory of where his phone could have been kicked to that Longguo reappears from behind a small huddle of people dancing near the couches in the corner of the bar. 

"The screen isn't even broken," Longguo says, almost cheerily. 

"You're a lifesaver!" Sangyeon doesn't even consider until after he's already pulled Longguo into his arms that they don't really know each other. But most things are not quite as unfamiliar as they should be when meeting people through Jaehyun. 

Sangyeon pulls away. Longguo looks as though he could really smile. 

"I'm glad that I met you," Sangyeon says. "I know it is selfish because you found my phone and bought me all those drinks, but I just feel like this was one of those things that was always meant to happen."

"I hope it was," Longguo says. "If it is fixed then no matter how many times someone tries to come back it can't be changed."

"Like fate" 

"A bit like that," Longguo says. 

Sangyeon likes the idea of fate looking out for him like this. Meeting so many time travellers has its good points. 

"I need to get back to help Gyeongwon out with everyone's drinks, but I'll grab one for you next time. I'll trust fate to take care of us both in the meantime."

There's reproach in Longguo's face before he smiles and tells Sangyeon he's looking forward to the next time. Sangyeon wonders when next time will be as he finds Gyeongwon. She has a collection of drinks within the circle of her arms and a furrow in her brow which dissolves when she sees Sangyeon return. 

"You were gone for ages and I didn't know how to get the drinks to the table," Gyeongwon says. "I don't have my phone so I couldn't ask anyone for help."

"I'm here now, sorry. There was a queue for the gents."

Gyeongwon is quiet for a moment, doesn't voice the disagreement on her lips and picks up as many glasses as she can carry back to the table. 

"These aren't the drinks we wanted," comes the chorus of complaints from the table. 

At least Jaehyun looks happy to see Sangyeon. Once the drinks are down Jaehyun pulls Sangyeon closer. "The queue must have been bad at the bar. We should have preordered a drinks package after all."

"It's alright. It will be your turn next time."

Jaehyun laughs, pulls Sangyeon’s hand to his lips for a quick kiss and catches him up on the chatter at the table, mostly complaints about the workload at the training academy. 

°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠃⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

Sangyeon doesn't get deja vu too often. He doesn't really dwell too much on dreams, not that he even remembers many of them. The dreams Sangyeon remembers feel more like memories, some murky and dark to the extent he can't tell whether he has lived a day like that before. Some of the dreams are conscious projections of nostalgia for a time that doesn't much matter to him. 

Sangyeon watches the customer walk through the entrance of the 7-eleven with long strides before meandering around the aisles to pick up something cheap but never completely random. Sangyeon serves other customers in the meantime but he keeps a number in his head, still not sure what it means even after being given an oddly redundant explanation. 

"I can't even remember how long it has been since I last saw you," Sangyeon says. 

Jaehyun falters and his nonchalant air shatters. "Don't we live together yet?" 

Sangyeon smiles. This is almost the same as his Jaehyun. But not quite. "I meant this you. The one from the future. I was hoping to hear about what happens in future. We do live together. It's very new. I might have to break up with you if you don't stop sending pictures of my ugly sleeping face to your friends."

"Take that back," Jaehyun says. "You're not ugly."

"So you're saying I can still dump you?" 

Jaehyun laughs and folds his arms. "Say that all you want, I know you wouldn't actually do it."

"Then why are you here?" Sangyeon asks. "Did you miss me or something when we're probably married and disgustingly happy where you're from?" 

Jaehyun doesn't say anything, just opens his mouth but the excuse he expected to materialise into his mouth doesn't arrive. 

"Did we break up? What did you do?" Sangyeon asks. He lowers his voice at Jaehyun's flinch and leans across the counter. "Was it me? Was it my fault."

Jaehyun shakes his head and puts his hand on the counter beside Sangyeon’s. His little finger twitches just enough that their skin touches and Jaehyun exhales. "You didn't do anything."

Sangyeon doesn't like this. He doesn't like not knowing something like this and having Jaehyun hide things. But Jaehyun must be here for a detour away from work so Sangyeon isn't allowed to ask too much. He doesn't quite understand all the rules but he knows this much. And he knows that no matter how hard he tries he can't make this Jaehyun laugh as hard as the one waiting for him at home. 

"I knew it would be you," Sangyeon says, just to see the grit of a grimace in the face of the man he has loved. "What are you going to do to make it up to me?" 

Jaehyun curls his fingers into his palm and Sangyeon supposes that sliding his hand over Jaehyun's isn't anything too bad. Jaehyun hesitates, drains his lower lip of colour in the moment his teeth press into it, but he turns his hand over and closes it around Sangyeon’s. 

"I'll let you know when I work it out."

Sangyeon might never need to find out what Jaehyun decides, and that is fine. He scans Jaehyun's items through the till, knows the number before the total appears on the screen, and smiles. 

"Where are you going after this? Or 'when'?" 

Jaehyun shrugs. "I'm going home. To see you."

Sangyeon doesn't say anything about their apparent breakup and wonders how many other times in his life he will meet a Jaehyun years ahead of him. Sangyeon thinks he's probably too selfish for his own good. He wants to keep seeing Jaehyuns ahead of his time just to see hints of what he has to look forward to. 

Sangyeon slides his hand away and bags up Jaehyun's tissues and phone charger. He doesn't mind that he could get in trouble for giving away the bag for free but he isn't going to risk ruining Jaehyun's total. 

"₩9809. As always," Sangyeon says. "What does it mean?" 

Jaehyun pays and takes the carrier bag. "It doesn't mean anything. Why do you ask?" 

Sangyeon pauses. Another Jaehyun has given an answer before. Sangyeon wonders whether this Jaehyun is from far off enough that he genuinely doesn't remember (whether the response was genuine or a lie) but then he wonders whether ripples in variable points in time are dragging meaning away from moments like these to gather at a fixed moment nearby. 

Sangyeon doesn't want to dwell too much on that or the possibility that even he could forget things that have been manipulated by people in Jaehyun's line of work. So he shrugs and fiddles with the display of lollipops sitting on the counter to entice the curiosity of sweet-toothed customers. 

"You have too many secrets."

Jaehyun doesn't refute that. "I'm sure you have plenty of secrets that I don't know anything about."

Sangyeon wants to laugh but he isn't sure what that means. He takes a moment to be careful. He doesn't know what the future holds and he isn't going to risk jinxing it. He tells the only secret he thinks he has but Jaehyun's reaction suggests he already knows it. 

"I love you too, idiot."

By the time Sangyeon heads home he's wondering just why Jaehyun had to visit him. But he thinks he'd take the opportunity to visit Jaehyun in the past too if he was capable. He'd definitely do it to return to days like this when Jaehyun is sulky and clingy and refuses to tell Sangyeon what's wrong. 

They eat and Jaehyun announces that he isn't going to bother responding to any phone notifications, even if they're from work. Sangyeon doesn't disagree with the plan but with Jaehyun sprawled across the sofa, determination forcing him to rest his head in Sangyeon’s lap rather than anywhere more comfortable, there's a regular pang of responsibility which has him checking Jaehyun's phone for updates all the same. 

There's a message from Sooyoung twenty minutes into the movie they selected to watch on the TV. Sangyeon doesn't open it to read it but he sees a placation in the opening words. He places the phone face-down on the arm of the sofa and gently brushes his hands through Jaehyun's hair. Jaehyun sighs, short and near-silent. He's sweet like this. 

"Are you going to tell me how your day was? Even if everything is classified you can tell me vague things."

Jaehyun tilts his head to look up at Sangyeon and huffs. He looks back at the TV screen. 

"If you're going to sulk you should at least let me get up for snacks." 

"Don't you dare move. You have to stay here to protect me."

Sangyeon laughs. "From what?" 

Jaehyun huffs like he is being greatly inconvenienced by the question as he rolls to more comfortably look up at Sangyeon. "Something awful could happen to me. I have a nemesis who threatened my life today."

Jaehyun is very serious so Sangyeon hides his smile as best he can. "I'll keep you safe. Who is your nemesis?" 

Jaehyun frowns upwards. "I don't know if I should say."

"You know what they say: forewarned is forearmed."

Jaehyun flinches and pinches Sangyeon’s leg at the realisation he'd reacted for nothing. He grumbles, "How is this the only time you haven't tried to choke me with your forearm after saying that?" 

Sangyeon hums. "This is serious. You've had a bad day and I haven't seen you have a bad day since you started at the academy. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to take a break from pretending to laugh at your jokes."

Jaehyun sits up and twists to grapple with Sangyeon until he is satisfied that he has won. At least when he has won he is almost smiling. But he's clingy enough that Sangyeon is happy to wrap him in his embrace and pretend he's being helpful by cuddling Jaehyun against his chest until the words come out. 

"I'm going to sound petty and unreasonable to you, but I think someone is trying to kill me."

Sangyeon squeezes Jaehyun that bit tighter. "You're joking, right?" 

Jaehyun shakes his head. 

"What has happened? Have you gone to the police?" 

Jaehyun makes the shape of a phone with his hand and brings it cautiously to his ear. "Hello, police? Someone with a grudge against me because I am better than him in every way keeps sabotaging me when we're in different time trips to stop me from coming back." Jaehyun nods and passes his hand to Sangyeon. "They want to talk to you."

"Hello? I hope you are taking my boyfriend's complaints seriously. I wouldn't be able to live without him." 

Jaehyun sighs and drops his hand to his lap. 

"I really think you might have to live without me one day," Jaehyun says. "I'm practically a genius but even I lose track of fixed and variable timelines. I think I might be in the wrong place at the right time when Longguo gets me."

For a moment Sangyeon considers what it would be like to lose Jaehyun, and then he considers the possibility that a careful splice in the right reel of time would make it so Sangyeon wouldn't even remember what he had lost. 

Even if Sangyeon doesn't think people could really be capable of killing someone so completely that they don't exist, he thinks Jaehyun has reason to worry. The potential exists for impossible travel to be abused and not knowing that world means that Sangyeon doesn't really know the scope of what could be done. 

Sangyeon has heard of timelines hooked onto fixed events and the events which are loose enough to be manipulated but he doesn't want to find out that moments which Sangyeon considers fixed for him aren't fixed for certain organisations which regulate time. 

Sangyeon doesn't want to find out that for the academy Jaehyun trains at, him meeting Sangyeon isn't a fixed point to bring him to where he needs to be in life to do his job. 

"Can't you report him if you think he will do something?" Sangyeon asks against the crown of Jaehyun’s head. 

"I don't have any proof or witnesses," Jaehyun says, "but I know there's something wrong. I think it might be because of you."

"Me?"

Jaehyun tilts his head up, presses a kiss to Sangyeon’s jaw. "Yeah. To be fair, if it was the purpose of trying to win you over I'd kill him too." 

"You shouldn't joke about things like that."

"You know I'm not joking." 

Jaehyun doesn't expand on that but Sangyeon would prefer he doesn't anyway. Jaehyun is a good person. Jaehyun wouldn't hurt someone like that, no matter how they appeared to deserve it. 

Sangyeon breathes. He has Jaehyun now and he has seen Jaehyun from years to come. He won't fall foul of an academic rival. Sangyeon will still have him in future too. 

°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠃⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

Over the course of a month, Jaehyun visits Sangyeon more frequently than ever. He doesn't say anything new or give away any clues and Sangyeon knows he should stop anticipating anything like that. All the Jaehyuns that visit are from the same near-future and they all look at Sangyeon the same way. 

"Is something happening?" Sangyeon asks. Gnawing at the inside of his cheeks is getting tiresome and he'd rather know definitively if there is bad news on the horizon. 

"Can't a guy come to visit the love of his life at various points over the years? You're going on like I'm doing something wrong."

Sangyeon sighs. Jaehyun is doing something wrong. There are only so many times time travellers are allowed to take personal trips. Unless Jaehyun had lied last year as an excuse to not have to take Sangyeon anywhere with him. Sangyeon isn't so sure now but after Jaehyun brought up the concept it would make sense that the time travellers are allowed a finite number of trips. 

"It had better not just be me that you're visiting. You've already seen me and you know everything about me. Have you been to the future? Have you seen me get old? Have you seen me die?" 

Jaehyun winces at that. Eventually he nods. He carefully presses his lips together and shrugs it all off so that the only remnants of Sangyeon’s question are the sharper breaths that make Jaehyun's voice sound too gruff. 

"Yes. I've seen you die."

Death happens to everyone and, even in the knowledge that it is so far off, Sangyeon feels unsettled by the thought that one day he will cease to be. One day there won't be anybody on the planet who knows Sangyeon and all the things he'd think of to make people laugh, or how often he measures his life in breaths taken, or even that his biggest secret was the hardest to keep; he loves a man who could charm the shine from the stars. 

It is bad enough thinking that about himself. Sangyeon dreads the onset of the realisation that the same will be true of Jaehyun. Even Jaehyun will succumb to the passage of time. 

"Please tell me I die before you," Sangyeon says as he leans heavily against the counter. The hotdog warmer beside the checkout rattles ominously but Sangyeon won't mind it. The mechanics of the warmer probably won't explode and kill him today. 

"I'm not telling you that."

Sangyeon sighs. It isn't that Jaehyun is a good liar, but he is more than adept at deflecting attention from the aspects of words which might reveal too much. He says, "Please, just tell me this one thing to reassure me. I don't want to live without you, even if I am decrepit and ancient and can't even see you properly. I would be so lonely without you."

"What about me?" 

Sangyeon doesn't know about Jaehyun. He doesn't have any good suggestions, he just wants to avoid living like that himself. He knows how callous his words sound when he says, "You could just keep coming back to visit me."

Jaehyun nods. "I could. I'll bear that in mind when it happens. But if I die before you, you'd better not hold it against me."

Jaehyun is difficult. Sangyeon knows that well enough and that is why he doesn't press for an answer about his frequent appearances now. 

Something about seeing Jaehyun, this same Jaehyun visiting from the near future of just a couple of years ahead, sets Sangyeon on edge. When Sangyeon has this future Jaehyun in front of him, he feels ungrateful. His Jaehyun is away too often and home is so empty for the days and weeks of Jaehyun’s training assignments so even getting to see him like this quells the odd longing in Sangyeon’s gut. But when he is at home without any of the Jaehyuns he knows, Sangyeon can't sleep a full night, and meals go half-eaten if he manages to make anything at all, and messages go ignored for the sake of trawling through pictures and videos and notes for anything which could foreshadow something Sangyeon might never know. He's distracted, he can't focus, and he's wondering just what it is that Jaehyun is keeping secret. 

It isn't until Jaehyun returns from his latest assignment that Sangyeon decides that getting away from the portal at the airport would help take his mind off things. Of course this isn't how he frames it to Jaehyun. 

Sangyeon just fancies a change and Jaehyun is good enough to think of easy changes he could make. A pilot, a cleaner, air cabin crew, maybe even applying for the academy would be something interesting and different! 

Sangyeon sighs. 

"I was thinking of something completely different," he says. Jaehyun frowns and offers Sangyeon a taste from the saucepan heating on the hob. 

Sangyeon nods, Jaehyun has done well with a sauce out of a jar, but he isn't going to agree with him. 

"I like having you around the airport though. And as soon as I get back to this time I can see you. Because I love you."

"I love you too. But I need a different job. Nothing has changed for me but so much has changed for you. I need something different."

"If getting a new job is what you need then I will support you. I know the stress of hating your job is making you constipated so I will help you find a job you'll like," Jaehyun says, as though he is being kind. 

"Constipated?" Sangyeon scoffs. 

"If you're going to the toilet for twenty minutes and there's still nothing, I'd call that constipated," Jaehyun says. He turns down the heat of the cooker hob and points over at the pressure cooker for Sangyeon to check. But Jaehyun isn't done. 

"Your bowel health is very important to me, Sangyeon. I'll even help you to practice for interviews."

He's smiling as he says it and Sangyeon can't help but smile back. It is strange but he likes how laissez-faire Jaehyun is about changing his mind. Whether Jaehyun knows what comes next or not, Sangyeon takes the guarantee of assistance as a sign. 

Another sign comes in the form of Vivi appearing at some point during Sangyeon’s next shift (or the one after, or the one after that. It is difficult to separate the continuum of mundane sometimes). 

"It has been a while since I last saw you," Sangyeon says. "But you don't look so different. Has it been long since you last saw me?" 

Vivi shakes her head. "This is all happening in one go for me. I think some of the times I have visited you have already been forgotten."

Sangyeon looks at Vivi, wonders why her presence is so much more substantial than the shop he works in. He wonders what she means and whether she is real at all. Vivi smiles under the scrutiny and taps her chin in synthesised thought. 

"Time is changing, but it is for the better, I promise."

"How much is changing?" 

"Just enough," Vivi says. "You'll thank me, I promise."

"If you're doing something that good, what are you getting out of it? We're strangers, but you keep coming to be mysterious. What am I missing?" 

Vivi laughs and her lower lip wrinkles into a pout. "Who says we're strangers? Just because you haven't met me yet, it doesn't mean that I haven't met you."

"That's fair. It is hard to keep track of time travellers."

"Actually I'm not a time traveller," Vivi says. She fiddles with a stack of flyers on the counter and slips on away to fold into a delicate plane. "Can you guess what sort of person I am?" 

"You're not a time traveller, but you travel through time?" 

Vivi smiles, wide enough to look genuinely kind even though her eyes hold a sheen of pity. "It is strange how limited things seem in the past."

"What is that supposed to mean?" 

"Travelling like this isn't a daily thing everyone does, but it is common. I don't think many people come back to a time like this though. It is boring and your methods of travel are rudimentary because you need such a big building for the portal. I come from a time when things are more precise and we can travel beyond restrictions like airports. Everyone wants to go back to when all the cool history was happening. You know, swords and stuff."

There's a playful glint which replaces the pity in Vivi's eyes and Sangyeon realises that, in a roundabout way, she's making fun of him. Sangyeon grins. 

"Swords and stuff? Have you ever been to see them?" 

Vivi looks thoughtful and taps her chin. "No, I haven't, but you'd probably think there are even cooler things than swords when you meet me for the first time."

"Why, have we been on a trip together?" 

Vivi giggles. "Something like that. Nowhere interesting though. You're always too busy trying to get your happily ever after to think about the other fun things you could do. Where I'm from we don't have luxuries like you do."

"You say you don't have luxuries but you can travel through time without needing portals like this?" 

"That's right," Vivi says sombrely. "Having excellent infrastructure is no good when it can just take you to more horrible places. You have luxuries here like not watching people die around you. It isn't nice to think that I keep coming back here and seeing the things which caused all the pain in my time." She sighs and shrugs away the furrow in her brow. The serious tone is gone but not because there is anything light in her words. "I want to stop things but there is no point. There is too much. Everything is fixed and there is no telling just how far back I would need to go to change the whole world." 

Vivi's expression softens though there had been harshness in her words drawn from needing to build up sediments of strength. She has seen things Sangyeon wouldn't ever be able to imagine. "Are you from the end of the world?" 

Vivi laughs. "You're good at guessing. That's where you'll meet me for the first time. Can you guess what I do there?" 

Sangyeon shakes his head. There are too many possibilities in the things that don't exist yet. Vivi smiles again, soft. "My job is more like yours than Jaehyun's. It paid the bills until the panicked exodus to find somewhere else to live. I think it is probably too late for the ones like me who got left behind."

"Can't you just come here? You could live your entire life before it is too late."

Vivi blinks away the startled sheen in her eyes. "It is so strange hearing that again. When you said it the first time I thought you were just being strange. Your husband even pointed out that someone from the Hemsut Agency would need to remove me from the time period I don't belong in."

Unfortunately, Sangyeon doesn't latch onto any of the important parts of what Vivi is saying. 

"Husband? So we don't break up and we get married instead?" 

Vivi flaps her hands in the air between them but she can't make words disperse once they have already been spoken. "No. You could still do both, don't listen to me. You should still dump him."

"No way," Sangyeon says. "If he's going to make the bad choice to marry me he's going to have to stick with me for life."

Vivi's panic dissipates but she looks careful about her next words all the same. "If you were going to get married, you'd probably need to find a different job. You need to be getting paid more so you can save up." 

Vivi glances at the stack of flyers on the counter and slips one from the pile and hands it to Sangyeon. "It looks like this hotel is hiring. It might be fun."

Sangyeon looks at the flyer. It might be fun. He supposes Vivi would know best. He folds the flyer and slips it into his pocket. However long he works after Vivi leaves, Sangyeon can feel it against his leg as a reminder of the choices life presents to him. 

°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠉⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

Working at a hotel is fun in ways Sangyeon wouldn't have expected. His colleagues are open about their grievances and the air of camaraderie sweetens the shifts that drag on into days Sangyeon can't quite identify. It is also mind numbingly boring in ways that were omitted when Sangyeon first applied for the job last year. 

Somehow the weeks spilled into one another and missing Jaehyun wasn't so bad when he'd come back from training assignments in different times only to cling to Sangyeon like he never intended to leave again. 

It is near the end of one shift in early December that Sangyeon actually answers one of the calls he gets from an unknown number. He is usually more wary than that and after answering previous calls only to hear rustling or a dead line, Sangyeon isn't entirely sure why he does answer it. He has had too much of the day with incredibly demanding guests at the hotel that arrived this morning. Being a concierge is more trouble than it is worth sometimes and Sangyeon mostly wanted an excuse to get even more annoyed and vent to someone about additional irritations. 

But he gets more than just rustling through this phone call. 

"I just arrived at the airport and I need more than only hearing your voice right now."

Sangyeon can't help his smile and he peers down the corridor to check he has enough time for this call. "I thought you were supposed to come back tomorrow."

"If anyone asks, I had an accident and returned several hours too early. But I was desperate to see you. I need to talk to you."

Sangyeon spots an approaching room service trolley and starts in the direction of another hiding spot without even checking who is pushing the trolley. He can't cut this conversation short. He does take a pause to wipe off the sweatiness of his palms on his trousers. 

"That's kind of scary. What do you need to talk about?" 

"I need to talk to you in person. It is really important. Are you finishing your shift soon?" 

Sangyeon is approaching twelve hours but he has another two after that. But those extra hours are looking mighty unbearable from this point of Sangyeon’s shift. 

"It's good. I think it might be something you'd want to talk about," Jaehyun says. Sangyeon isn't entirely sure. 

"I could pretend to be sick."

Jaehyun sounds relieved. "Yeah. Do that."

Sangyeon does just that. He chews the scenery as much as he can in an effort to convince a duty manager to let him go before the 10am checkout and is in his car on the way to the airport within quarter of an hour. 

Jaehyun is shivering outside the airport when Sangyeon arrives to pick him up. Sangyeon complains about Jaehyun losing his coat in another time and Jaehyun endlessly reminds Sangyeon that he has missed him too much to care. Sangyeon has missed Jaehyun too but he's feeling tense from what Jaehyun had said on the phone. It was a different sort of tension to the way his nerves ratcheted up with each call he received from an unknown number which didn't give him the closure of knowing why someone has attempted to contact him for no reason. 

The motorway is steady and Sangyeon can claim the same about his nerves. 

"What was it that you wanted to talk about?" Sangyeon asks. 

"Sorry?" Jaehyun asks. He is holding his hands against the car radiator and looks at Sangyeon like they have never had a single conversation in his life. 

"On the phone. You were being weird and said you needed to talk to me."

Jaehyun hums. "Oh, yeah. I forgot. Anyway, I was wondering something. We've been together for like three years, right?" 

Sangyeon sighs. It hasn't been three years yet. It has been a little over two and a half years considering they're months away from their third April Fool's Day. But that is close enough. "Yeah. Maybe that long."

"You're so annoying. And even though you're so terrible and annoying I love you. I keep going into the future and every time I come back I wonder what is going to be my constant as I go into the future the usual way."

"The usual way," Sangyeon laughs. "The way I do, right?" 

"The way you will," Jaehyun agrees. "Do you think you'll have a constant in your life? Like a person who will go into the future with you?" 

Sangyeon shrugs. "Yes? I think a lot of people want that."

"And you?" Jaehyun presses. "Do you want to be that person for someone too?" 

"Jaehyun, I unfortunately know you well enough to know that you're about to dump me as a joke. Again."

Jaehyun grumbles as though he really has any business wondering how Sangyeon could ever think that. It has happened way too many times for Jaehyun to be sulking. Sangyeon has made the same joke himself but he's too tired for this after such a long day. 

"Can you stop the car somewhere?" Jaehyun asks. "If you don't, I'm going to fight you and you'll crash this car and we'll both die."

Sangyeon would take the chance but he does want a rest after staying up all night. He pulls over into the carpark of a fast food restaurant and regrets his choice immediately. But he finds a parking space and considers how he can trick Jaehyun into driving them somewhere else and then take them both home. Sangyeon needs a plan that will end up with them switching seats. 

"Sangyeon," Jaehyun says with too much emphasis to be comfortable. 

"Yes, dear."

"I think we have reached the end of our run. I don't want you to be my boyfriend anymore."

Sangyeon sighs. "One day you're going to dump me for real and I won't even realise because you do this so often." Jaehyun reaches across the gap between them and squeezes Sangyeon’s shoulder. The pressure pulls Sangyeon’s vision away from the poster advertising a limited edition burger and the serious expression on Jaehyun's face is enough for him to realise. "Oh. This is actually happening, isn't it? You could have at least waited for us to get home so I could cry myself to sleep and pretend this was just a bad dream."

Jaehyun grabs Sangyeon’s other shoulder and forces him face-on. "I don't want you to be my boyfriend anymore. I want you to be my fiancé."

"Get out of my car," Sangyeon says. 

"Is that a yes?" Jaehyun asks. "Are you going to marry me one day?" 

Sangyeon needs sleep. And then he needs to wake up and ask Jaehyun if this was just an awful dream. Just in case it is a dream Sangyeon nods. "Yeah. I'll marry you."

°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠉⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

Sangyeon receives some strange phone calls for a while, but the interference of the signal is enough to obfuscate the sounds beyond the white noise. Occasionally Sangyeon receives strange calls which must be directed impossibly because he can recognise the differences between his Jaehyun and the Jaehyuns who peer back some years to greet him. 

Sangyeon smiles when he hears Jaehyun's voice through the phone, even if he's being called from some place as impossible as the future. Smiling is more difficult when the caller is clearly not Jaehyun at all. 

The calls that aren't from Jaehyun are all the same. The breaths which crackle across the signals being sent to Sangyeon’s phone distort into audible pixels. Something about the calls remind Sangyeon of mayday broadcasts in the futile hours of imminent disaster. The panicked breaths tear at the edges with the indices the sound is pushed through to reach a different time, yet Sangyeon can still hear the pleas. 

"He's trying to kill me! You have to come to the airport, Sangyeon."

It might have taken several attempts to listen to the calls and even the voicemail filling up space on his phone, but Sangyeon understands the message as clearly as though the person speaking the words is clutching at him and talking right into his ear. Now there is no way for Sangyeon to claim ignorance, but there isn't anything he can do. 

The phone calls don't indicate when they are coming from, let alone where, so Sangyeon just has to wonder what he is expected to do to save a person he probably hasn't met yet. Vivi doesn't even visit whilst Sangyeon is receiving an increase in calls so she can't even ask her, not that she's an expert on the matter. If Sangyeon does see Vivi again he doubts he'd waste the opportunity to ask about strange things he's able to forget. He could ask what her life is actually like, whether she would consider coming back to the time Sangyeon lives in just to save herself, whether a dying world is something to be observed when there is a chance to exist long before it happens. 

Then one day there's a phone call from a familiar voice. 

"Don't go," Vivi says, urgency running beneath the imperative tone. Unlike the other calls and messages, this one sticks with Sangyeon for a while. He can't even imagine where he shouldn't be going, let alone why, but he keeps playing back the message in his voicemail when he is supposed to be getting ready. 

"Sangyeon," Jaehyun says as he sits on the edge of the bed beside Sangyeon. Jaehyun is fully dressed and doesn't look at all impressed with the fact that Sangyeon hasn't done more than wrap himself in a towel after showering. "We're going to be late."

Sangyeon laughs and drops his phone on the mattress behind them. "Since when do you care about being late? Especially to one of Chanhee's parties." 

"It's new year's eve," Jaehyun says, probably not quite as casually as he'd like. "It is our anniversary and we missed the last two years because of other stuff."

"Today is not our anniversary."

Jaehyun cups Sangyeon’s jaw, delicate, soft, and says, "Happy three years, babe."

"It hasn't been three years," Sangyeon says. 

"If I'm wrong then tell me when our anniversary is," Jaehyun says. The problem with him posing a challenge like this is he knows that Sangyeon isn't going to admit aloud that their anniversary is probably April Fool's day. In the absence of Sangyeon’s answer, Jaehyun continues, "We're engaged and we need to get the party early enough to rub it in everyone's faces while they're all still sober."

This actually makes sense to Sangyeon. He had worried that Jaehyun's occupational traversing had made him forget that all of his invitations to Chanhee's parties were circumstantial (the party where Sangyeon and Jaehyun met might very well have been an accident because Jaehyun admitted that night he was surprised to be invited at all) because there wasn't any real reason to be so eager to go. Except for some low level spite. 

"You do know that Chanhee himself has probably been drinking since noon."

"Yes," Jaehyun agrees, "but by the time we have made everyone else annoyed he would have sobered up and we could even get him. I was trying to guess what was taking you so long and I assumed you were trimming your pubes and giving yourself a fake tattoo that you could unleash on Chanhee and get us disinvited from every future party he hosts."

"Where would this fake tattoo be that I'd have to trim my pubes yet I would also be compelled to show Chanhee."

"You'd be theatrically drunk," Jaehyun says. "You would be riding high on the joys of being engaged to someone as perfect and amazing as me, and one drink too many would have you bragging about every aspect of our lives until you start stripping off to reveal the words hidden in your underwear: bussy slayer."

Sangyeon can't help the snort which erupts out of him at Jaehyun's words. 

"Your imagination is incredible."

"That is, of course, why you're marrying me," Jaehyun says seriously. 

"Should we do it?" Sangyeon asks. "What could we use to make a fake tattoo?" 

Jaehyun laughs into Sangyeon’s shoulder, kisses his neck softly, asks how Sangyeon can bear to be so perfect. They don't end up giving Sangyeon a fake tattoo, but Jaehyun can't complain about Sangyeon wasting time when he needs to get dressed all over again. Jaehyun pretends to be annoyed as Sangyeon points out the fact that he only had to get ready once but, true to his word, Jaehyun drops his false mood by the time the taxi arrives at Chanhee's and they manage to spend the night rubbing their relationship in everybody's faces. 

°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠙⠀⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

The day Jaehyun completes his training at the academy lacks the fanfare Sangyeon expects. There is no ceremony and nothing like a grade to denote just how well Jaehyun has done over the past three years. Instead the day doubles as an induction at the department at the Hemsut Agency which has chosen him from the interviews the two months before. 

Sangyeon nods along and pretends he understands as he drives them to the restaurant where they've arranged to meet Sooyoung and her partner. Three years is a long time and there are a lot of things over that time which Jaehyun has studied whereas Sangyeon has had it explained to him by Jaehyun in ways that don't quite make sense. Sometimes Sangyeon tries, but other times he doesn't see the point in the effort when he is only going to forget and need Jaehyun to tell him again. 

"You're not listening to me, are you?" Jaehyun asks at the traffic lights. Sangyeon glances at Jaehyun and can't help but smile. The afternoon is bright and the sunlight streaming into the car falls just so Jaehyun has to wince a bit to see through it. The minor inconvenience looks good on him. Better, when Sangyeon admits to not really listening. 

"Aren't I just going to hear everything again when we're with your friends from school?" Sangyeon points out. He smiles to himself as Jaehyun sighs and sags in the passenger seat. He wears impatience too well. 

"Stop saying it like that. And they're your friends too."

Sangyeon doesn't say anything. As nice as Jaehyun's friends like Sooyoung and Jinsol are, they live in a different sort of world. They have done things Sangyeon couldn't even imagine and the impossible is commonplace for them. Time travel isn't anything Sangyeon can pretend to comprehend. It had taken months for him to understand the two different flows of time Jaehyun has tried to simplify into an explanation for Sangyeon. 

On brief occasions Sangyeon will go through the motions of a day and ponder just how much of what he does is fixed and how much is variable by someone coming back to coax him in the right direction. The thoughts never last too long after the realisation that nothing Sangyeon does is quite so important that it requires the guidance of a person who has seen it all before. 

One last look before the lights change. Sangyeon hopes that no matter how many times someone might come back and makes amendments that he gets to keep Jaehyun like this. 

Sangyeon turns up the music playing through the stereo. He thinks Jaehyun is going to hum along or tap his fingers to the beat. Instead he leans forward to turn it off completely. 

"What's up with you?" 

"They're your friends too."

Oh, Sangyeon thinks, that's all? That part isn't as big a problem as Jaehyun thinks it is but appeasing Jaehyun is easier than going through the trouble of explaining things unnecessarily. 

"They're my friends," Sangyeon says. 

"They're coming to our wedding, so you'd better start sounding like you mean it when you say it next time."

Sangyeon laughs. "I do mean it. I'm sure they'll all pitch in for all the best things we want from our gift registry."

"I'm being serious, stupid."

Sangyeon reasons that Jaehyun can be as serious as he likes but it doesn't change the fact that Jaehyun's friends likely get so much more of him than Sangyeon does. Sangyeon doesn't actually mind it too much. Jaehyun's friends are easy to talk to and they make good company, even at restaurants where the waiting staff likely aren't paid enough to put quite so much effort into the snotty expressions they dole out. 

"Haseul, do you feel like this all the time?" Jaehyun asks. His glass is raised in the air but Sangyeon can't tell if this is yet another toast or not. "I am in love, I am starting a great new job on Monday, my best friend is going to pay for my dinner, life could not be better right now."

"I would love to know who this generous best friend of yours is," Sooyoung says. 

"Aren't I supposed to be your best friend," Sangyeon suggests. "Some people say that they marry their best friends."

Jaehyun smiles and squeezes Sangyeon’s hand. "But I'd much rather marry you."

Haseul laughs hard enough for her drink to dribble from her nose and Sangyeon scrambles to hand her his napkin. Sooyoung pulls a face as she pats Haseul on the back firmly. 

"I already do too much for you, Jaehyun, I'm not going to pay for your dinner."

"What do you do for me?" Jaehyun asks. Sangyeon imagines there is a lot that Jaehyun doesn't consider to be generosity but he isn't certain of the specifics. He doesn't know all the details of Jaehyun’s working life so he can't imagine all the things that Sooyoung might need to do in order to pick up the slack. 

Haseul catches Sangyeon’s attention with a small gesture. It is fine to let Jaehyun squabble with Sooyoung for at least a little while. It must be what they do for fun. Haseul's smile is careful, kind. 

"He's obviously going to pay for his own food," Sangyeon says, just in case Haseul had worried about that. Haseul masks a smile with her hand as she shakes her head. Once her smile has folded away she leans across the table as though worried she might be overheard. 

"I'm glad we managed to meet at last. I have heard a lot about you."

Sangyeon sits up straighter. "We've already met. It was maybe three years ago now."

The lack of reaction in Haseul's face is cautious. She nods. She smiles. "Of course. I just meant… Like this."

Sangyeon supposes that isn't a strange thing to say. This is more intimate than the static noise of the new year's eve party the last time they met. This time Sangyeon gets to hear about how difficult Sooyoung finds dragging Haseul out of her laboratory and it makes sense that she'd not even consider something like meeting Sangyeon being memorable. 

Haseul is nice. Sangyeon wonders how many more times they will get to meet, how quickly they could forge a friendship that Haseul might remember. Sangyeon is already trying to recall the seating plan for the wedding reception to work out whether Haseul really had RSVPed to the wedding. 

The night is cool and Sangyeon mostly wishes they'd come in a taxi so he could have escaped being the responsible one when Jaehyun is crushing Sooyoung against the side of the car as he falls asleep. 

At least being tipsy might save Sangyeon from the confusion of Haseul pulling him close and winding her arms around his neck. 

"Please be careful. You're going to find Vivi and she'll fix everything."

Haseul grips onto Sangyeon for a moment longer before drawing away, easy and slight. She smiles and tries to nudge Jaehyun awake. 

"How do you know Vivi?" Sangyeon asks. 

Haseul doesn't answer, only tries to rescue Sooyoung. Sangyeon realises late that he needs to assist. Jaehyun wakes up enough to remind Sangyeon that they're destined to be together forever, but Sangyeon is more curious about how Vivi fits into his life. 

°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠙⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

Sangyeon is surprised at how misty his eyes are several hours after the fact. The ceremony is long over and the reception is winding down and Sangyeon is hiding away in a corner. 

Jaehyun finds him seconds after Sangyeon thinks he has found a well-guarded place to hide. It isn't a successful place at all, Sangyeon realises as Jaehyun pulls the tablecloth out of the way. Jaehyun's nose is red and his eyes are watering and seeing Jaehyun teary-eyed tears right through Sangyeon’s composure. He reaches his arms out and pulls Jaehyun under the table with him. 

"Why are you crying, baby?" Sangyeon blubs. 

"Is it just me? What about you, honey? You're crying worse than me," Jaehyun points out. He holds Sangyeon’s face in his hands and swipes away all the tears he can with his thumbs. He isn't doing a very good job, Sangyeon can feel the heat from his own embarrassment spilling down his cheeks in tiny trails and Jaehyun laughs quietly. 

"Did we do it? We got married for real?" Sangyeon asks. 

Jaehyun shakes his head. "No. It was all a joke. Sick prank, right?" 

"Yeah," Sangyeon agrees. "You're the funniest man of all time. I wish someone as funny as you could marry me."

Jaehyun snorts and rests his head on Sangyeon's shoulder. "You know what's really awful? I can come back here over and over and keep seeing the way you looked at me today in front of all these people, and I can go back to the day we met and remember the way you looked at me then, when it was just the two of us, and it already felt like falling in love. And I can revisit every moment where I realised that I love you."

Sangyeon laughs, sniffs back his tears, and attempts to be soothing as he strokes gently at the nape of Jaehyun’s neck. 

"Me too, Jaehyun. It's called remembering."

The shroud of the tablecloth is whipped away and Jaehyun's friend Sooyoung is regarding the sub-table occupants suspiciously. "You're not even under here doing bits, you're just crying."

"We're not crying," Jaehyun insists, indignation blurred by his tears even as he lifts his head quickly enough to knock into the underside of the table. 

"I didn't escape your sister's distraction techniques only for you pair to lie to me," Sooyoung points out as she crawls closer. Sangyeon had forgotten that his sister had promised to keep everyone away so he could go and be emotional on his own. She had suggested the idea as soon as she saw the bubbles in the sparkling wine had gone to Sangyeon’s head and erupted in spurts of surprise that his life had really turned out like this. 

His sister hadn't done a very good job at keeping Jaehyun away but Sangyeon is grateful for it. This is Jaehyun's day too and they both deserve a break from hearing Chanhee take credit for matching up the happy couple. It is all a lie but Sangyeon can only hope that the guests at the reception are taking Chanhee's words with a pinch of salt. 

"We're allowed to lie," Sangyeon says, "This is our wedding day." 

"How could you lie to me though?" Sooyoung asks, exaggerating how bothered she really is. "Haseul and I helped to arrange your ridiculous honeymoon!" 

"Thanks," Jaehyun says, gratitude dripping from his eyes incredibly sincerely. 

"I just decided that when I get married you're not invited," Sooyoung says with a scowl. The expression doesn't remain on her face for too long. She leans back from beneath the table and her fingers tighten their grip around the tablecloth as the song on the DJ's playlist changes. "You hear that? This song will be played for the first dance at my wedding that you're not invited to. I need to go."

Sooyoung clambers away and Jaehyun laughs in her wake. 

"She's so annoying," he says fondly. 

Sangyeon wonders whether it would be too much to tell Jaehyun that he loves him. This is their wedding, so Sangyeon supposes that there might be a rule allowing gratuitous declarations of affection. Just in case such a rule exists, Sangyeon tells Jaehyun. And Jaehyun smiles so wide as he presses at the puffiness of his eyes. 

⠀°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠙⠁⠉ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

The trip for the honeymoon is directed through the airport. Sangyeon and Jaehyun are just like typical newlyweds and it is nice. Sangyeon can just look at Jaehyun and remember that he has someone to spend the rest of his life with. Even so, when he catches Jaehyun looking at him he has a question. 

"Why are you looking at me?" 

Jaehyun pushes Sangyeon’s shoulder and drops his chin into his hands as he peers away across the foodcourt. "Legally I am allowed to look at you as much as I want."

"Legally," Sangyeon says, struggling to drain the humour from his voice, "You're annoying."

Jaehyun laughs and peers down at his lunch of assorted snacks. "Every time I go on a trip, I have to make sure I charge up my memory. I need to remember exactly what you look like because I won't be able to see you whenever I want."

"We're going together this time," Sangyeon points out. 

"Yeah," Jaehyun says. Sangyeon waits for whatever words are missing but Jaehyun goes back to eating. The snacks they bought from the 7-eleven are close to expiring and Jaehyun had said something about eating everything quickly before they travel. Sangyeon sort of wonders whether food really would suddenly spoil after a trip through a time portal but that wouldn't make much sense. It is enough though. It is enough for Sangyeon to drop his question about omitted words and ask something else. 

"Is all time fake or do dates make a difference with how time affects things?" 

"It's all fake," Jaehyun says. 

"So what difference would it make if you waited until after we reached our destination?" 

"I'm hungry now."

"And you're not going to offer any snacks to your husband?" 

Jaehyun wipes his hands on his trousers and licks his lips quickly, missing most of the crumbs, and asks, "Are you hungry?" 

"No."

Jaehyun gives Sangyeon a long look. "Then why would I offer?" 

"Because you love me."

Jaehyun slings his arm across Sangyeon’s shoulder and the expression on his face tells the obvious truth about how he is failing to temper the smirk forming at his own words. "I do love you, but am I supposed to give you the clothes off my back and the food from my belly just to keep you happy?" 

"No," Sangyeon says, leaning just out of Jaehyun’s reach. "You're supposed to give me food before you eat it. What do I want with something you've already digested?" 

Even before Jaehyun has time to take in the words, Sangyeon has predicted the squabble (or heated discussion, depending on who was asked) which ensues. Jaehyun is irritated for far too long after Sangyeon’s initial provocation. When they get up to take their trip, Sangyeon is too bothered about their suitcases to pay too much mind to anything other than the fact that his husband's sulking has lumbered him with all of their luggage. 

Regardless of the disagreement, Sangyeon should have been able to notice things like the changing styles of speech and clothing of the people around as well as the way the texture of the floor turned a deeper colour even whilst remaining polished to reflect everything above it. 

"Jaehyun, where are we?" 

Jaehyun stops his stride and turns back to meet Sangyeon halfway. There's something in his smile now that he has shed the sulkiness of insisting that he loves Sangyeon. He suddenly remembers that he has brought some luggage too and takes one of the wheeled suitcases from Sangyeon. "We're at the airport."

"I used to work here, dummy."

Jaehyun smiles. "I know. And this isn't technically the very end of the world, but I thought it would be nice to at least come close enough to the end without trapping ourselves. Our return trip is a month before plans to demolish the airport get signed off."

"Why would they demolish the airport?" Sangyeon asks. Looking around, the building is filled with people walking in all directions and footfall of this level doesn't tend to indicate the end of life for a business. Especially not for anything like an airport which is a necessary facet of infrastructure.

"Sooyoung wrote up a guide for this place," Jaehyun says offhand. "It is in one of the bags, but I think the gist of it is that they are going to tighten travel restrictions on unclean travel. It is probably a bit late at this stage, but it is almost the end of the world so things get a bit more desperate."

They reach the outdoors, the sun soaking them right through with dense heat of light, and Sangyeon immediately wishes to be back indoors. The artificial lights felt much cooler and bobbing along the flow of the crowd adds to the oppressive strata of scorching warmth. He manages to drag himself and his luggage to stand in a pillar of shade and Jaehyun joins him, smiling affably. 

"Why is it so hot?" Sangyeon asks. 

"Global warming. Obviously."

"We need to go back and uninvent dinosaurs or something," Sangyeon says as he tugs at his clothes to at least create the illusion of ventilation. 

"Dinosaurs?" 

"Didn't they all die and turn into fossil fuels? You're the time expert, aren't you?" 

Jaehyun looks lost for words for once. He squints at Sangyeon like he is trying to decipher an impossible code, but all he manages to come up with is, "We didn't… Study dinosaurs."

"That's ridiculous. Dinosaurs are the most important part of time."

"Sangyeon, the airport didn't exist when dinosaurs were on the planet. We can't go back that far," Jaehyun says. Cautiously, Jaehyun pats Sangyeon on the shoulder and attempts to fan him with the flat of his hand. "It isn't going to get any cooler. Do you want to go to a different time instead? I can quickly call Sooyoung and see if there is anywhere else we can go at short notice. And technically we've already been here, almost to the end of the world."

Jaehyun looks far too worried for what this is. Sangyeon just hadn't expected the end of the world to be so dizzyingly hot. Even if Sangyeon is tempted by the possibility of going to a different point in time, something about the place he is now seems to be where he needs to be. If this is the end of the world, this is where Sangyeon will meet Vivi for the first time. 

"We should stay," Sangyeon says. "You and Sooyoung made all the arrangements anyway."

Jaehyun smiles, marginally reassured. "I don't want you just putting up with things."

"No, I want to be here. This is our honeymoon. I can cope. Where are we going?" 

Jaehyun keeps sending Sangyeon uncertain glances even whilst carrying all of their luggage himself. They have a monorail to catch to the train station but Sangyeon feels like this is still a lot of walking considering they are in the future. Nonetheless complaining won't do any good, even if Sangyeon could do with sitting down for a long time. 

Sangyeon quickly learns that he doesn't like many things about the end of the world. The temperature isn't quite as warm as he had first thought and he isn't constantly sweating through the humidity, but the first few days aren't as comfortable as Sangyeon would like. 

"I'm sorry," Jaehyun says when he comes back into the little apartment they are renting for their stay in the future. He lifts the damp flannel from Sangyeon’s forehead and replaces it with a cool compress that feels like it is made from gel before it begins to spread numbness through his skin and below. 

"Why are you apologising?" Sangyeon asks. "Thank you for this, by the way."

"I forgot how disorientating travel like this is," Jaehyun says. "You have to build up a tolerance to be able to travel this far and be fine, but that never even occurred to me. Sooyoung didn't even remind me. She just told me that Haseul thought it was a good idea."

"So Sooyoung didn't recommend this herself?" Sangyeon surmises. 

"She helped," Jaehyun says. "So I just assumed she thought it was a good idea. You know, Haseul actually brought Sooyoung here once, a while back. Apparently it was research for whatever Haseul's top secret project is. Maybe I didn't hear the whole story because Sooyoung says there were lots of interesting things to see and do. We might have arrived during the off-season."

Sangyeon isn't sure what attractions Sooyoung could have endorsed about the end of the world. Sangyeon estimates they have spent two nights here already and both of those nights were difficult to sleep through. The unrest in the streets is tremendous enough to rattle the windows of their little apartment. Sangyeon still regrets the moment of curiosity which had him staggering out of bed and peering out of the window in time to see a large black vehicle which spanned the width of the road crawling on caterpillar tracks towards a group of people. The apartment is too high above the street to hear distinct sounds but Sangyeon knows the rhythm of chants at a protest. Sangyeon still isn't entirely sure what created the rumble which rippled through the street and shattered windows on the ground floor of the buildings across the street, but whatever released the sound was able to cleave a channel right through the crowd of people. 

The vehicle slowed its advance towards the crowd, but giving the protesters enough time to drag away casualties doesn't appear to be more than a display of the mercy which they could have if they left behind their dissenting attitudes. The vehicle crawled onwards and Sangyeon watched the jolt of one person who wasn't quite lucky enough. The vehicle trundled right over the person who wailed, muted. Sangyeon’s own shouting was futile and only roused Jaehyun from his dozing on the bed. 

Jaehyun had said "I'm sorry," then too, he'd tried to make sense of what Sangyeon was saying and held onto him more tightly as his understanding became clearer. He flipped a switch to douse the windows in pitch and disappeared for a short while. He apologised again when he returned, and Sangyeon couldn't work out what that was for. 

He still can't work it out now, but after seeing the empty street the next day he decided he didn't want to know.

"Being here must be boring for you," Sangyeon says as he attempts to sit up. The room doesn't pirouette into inverted tilting this time and this amount of recovery is promising. "I bet you usually get to do all sorts of fun things when you go to different times."

"Do you know what a job is?" Jaehyun asks sardonically. "A lot of it is waiting around and following people. And paperwork."

"Sounds awful," Sangyeon says very seriously. "But Sooyoung doesn't hate you enough to tell you that coming somewhere sketchy and boring is a good idea. There must be something good about this place."

Sangyeon is very aware that they booked the honeymoon for a week and Sangyeon has wasted almost half of it by being ill. He'd never seen Jaehyun having to recover from the sickness of catching up to a different rotation of the planet, but he supposes there is a lot that he hasn't seen of Jaehyun’s occupation. But, whether Jaehyun knows it himself, Sangyeon knows that they are here for a reason. They can't confine themselves in this little apartment and just hope that Vivi comes to them. 

"I guess I can find a brochure or something," Jaehyun says awkwardly. 

"Good idea. You do that," Sangyeon says as he shoos Jaehyun away. Jaehyun protests, or attempts to, but Sangyeon insists that he wants something to do together later that day. 

Alone at last, Sangyeon tries to think. Even though his phone can receive signals from the mobile data network, hundreds of years ahead, the connection is too spotty for him to persevere with his searches. 

Vivi had said there weren't so many luxuries in her time, but social media isn't anything that has died off. Sangyeon just doesn't anticipate he'll have much luck finding Vivi with a mononym and an approximate time frame to find her. Sangyeon gives up on the slang he doesn't recognise and the limited features that legacy accounts allow and tries something else. 

Years ago, further back than even the time Sangyeon has come from, people had other methods of finding people. So he goes outside like one might have done so before the advent of the internet. 

The street outside the apartment is quiet when Sangyeon steps into it, but looking up and down the street reveals the constant traffic of intersecting streets. This road seems too narrow for cars to cram their way through the unbroken rows of parked vehicles bordering the pavement. Sangyeon can't quite work out how the vehicle from the other night crawled its way through, nor how so many people had left their cars here since that night happened. But the windows at street level are intact, never shattered by the pulse of sound which felled so many of the people gathered. 

Sangyeon looks up, through the dense distortion of the air several storeys high, to where he thinks he'd find the window of the apartment he has spent so long trapped in but most of the windows are boarded up by grilles and sheets of eroded metal. The empty windows seem too low down, but he must still be feeling the effects of his time sickness. The disorientation would be more concerning if Sangyeon hadn't spent so long in a bed whilst trying to shed the layers of the world which skidded around before his eyes. The temperature is simply that of a pleasant summer, and the sweltering heat which had been so oppressive when Sangyeon first arrived had waned. Even if it is difficult to work out the world, this is by no means the worst. 

Sangyeon takes a chance. He needs to find Vivi. Jaehyun will hopefully be patient and wait around until Sangyeon returns. 

Sangyeon picks a direction at random and takes note of just how many buildings are boarded up. Burned out signs and laminated notices pasted to the sheets against windows are the only indicators that anything existed in the vacant buildings. The variety of the streets, whether deserted as the first street or crammed with wary and skittish pedestrians has been stripped back to uniform emptiness. It takes Sangyeon a while of cautious meandering down one long, winding road to give in to his curiosity and approach a weathered poster fluttering listlessly in the stirring breeze of the day. 

The font on the poster has faded, bleached by sunlight and exfoliated by the drumming of raindrop patter, but Sangyeon manages to read it. This café, and Sangyeon imagines many of the other ghosts of business along the street level, have closed down due to the evacuation. Sangyeon checks a few other posters as he encounters them and they all refer to the same evacuation. Coming from a different time, Sangyeon has no idea what the evacuation is. It makes sense that the event is so ingrained in the public conscious that there is no need to specify. Though Sangyeon wonders 'what evacuation?' everyone affected by the event knows it as 'the evacuation'. 

The people who used to live here know where they have ventured in search of shelter, but Sangyeon can't imagine why people have abandoned their lives here, nor where they might have settled. 

Aside from the knowledge that something significant has occurred, Sangyeon finds he's glad. Not for the concept of suffering people from this present day might have experienced, but for the confirmation that this is where he needs to be. Or at least 'when' he needs to be. 

Sangyeon has already met Vivi. Or he will find her. Either way he can be certain that Vivi is one of the people who have been left behind in the scramble to escape. Some part of Sangyeon wonders whether meeting Vivi is a fixed event. He supposes that if it is fixed then finding her will be the result of whatever he decides. So he doesn't dwell too much on making the right choice from all the possible directions. 

Sangyeon soon realises why the choices he makes don't matter. The streets are not simply uniform due to the abundance of abandoned buildings that stretch high above without even a crease in the surface to indicate hidden windows. The streets he is walking through are all the same. The long, winding, pedestrian pavement with the glimmer of metal window grilles melting through the smog in the distance loops around on itself. Sangyeon doesn't just get lost by following the same direction. He takes turns counter to previous directions yet finds himself in the same place, walking along the bleached pavement between tall flat buildings a while away from the smaller units which could be offices or blocks of flats. He has continued checking his phone, just for a sense of time and direction (and once just to see how many thousands of pointless steps he has taken after swiping away frantic notifications) and seen everything to act as it should do on any journey. Except Sangyeon isn't going anywhere in this mobius street. 

Sangyeon is tired and sits in the doorway of a building, the lock securing the chipboard shutting the entrance from the street having been forced open some time ago. The recess is dusty with accumulated litter, but it is the best shelter Sangyeon will find from the prisms of intensifying heat on the street. He watches another few messages from Jaehyun scroll in before his phone rings. 

"How's it going?" Sangyeon asks cheerily.

"I could kill you," Jaehyun says, relief seeping into his voice and discolouring the anger he intends. "Where did you go?" 

"I just went out to stretch my legs."

"You've been gone for over an hour. Come back so I can fight you."

Sangyeon glances left and right. Whichever choice he makes wouldn't make a difference. Both ends of this street lead to the same place. 

"I don't think I can do that."

"Obviously I'm not actually going to fight you," Jaehyun says crossly. "I'm worried. You shouldn't have gone out alone. This time isn't the safest place to be. It is the end of the world, remember?" 

Sangyeon remembers. He has even been able to confirm it for himself. "It isn't because I don't want to."

"Oh my goodness," Jaehyun says like he has just worked out the reason for tireless human existence. "You were tricking me this whole time. How could you make me fall in love with you and marry you just so you can ditch me for some futuristic paramour? Whoever they are, I'm not happy about this."

Sangyeon laughs, waits to hear the sigh so typical of Jaehyun at times like this. And then Sangyeon says, "I met someone. She's nice. You'd probably like her too if you'd met her first. But I need to find her and I know she is from the end of the world."

"I was just joking," Jaehyun says weakly. "You really have someone else?" 

"I love you, Jaehyun, but sometimes you're so dumb."

"Today is the day I stop. I won't be dumb anymore. I can see now that you've been deceiving me all along!" 

"If I tell you something, will you promise not to get upset?" 

"I'm already upset," Jaehyun points out. He's just as annoying as ever and Sangyeon wonders whether Jaehyun even realises how impossible it would be not to love him completely. 

"This person I met came to me and said she's going to save my life but I think I am meant to save hers."

"Sangyeon," Jaehyun says quietly. "Has anyone hit you over the head recently?" 

"I'm being serious."

"I think I liked it better when I was sure you were cheating on me."

Sangyeon laughs but he doesn't hear it echo back in Jaehyun's breath. Perhaps there was a moment where doubt had given way to an idea like that, the notion that insecurity had foundations to roost, but Sangyeon isn't sure where something like that could come from. Sangyeon might only be hearing wrong. 

"You know there's nobody I love more than you," Sangyeon says, the sound dead flat as it drops into the air of the endless avenue. 

"You don't need to love someone more than me to do something stupid and leave me all alone. You've never travelled this far before. We don't usually go so far in one go for a first trip but I didn't even think about it. Please come back before you get hurt."

"I'm not going to get hurt," Sangyeon says. He doesn't bother to reveal that he doesn't think he would be able to change his mind so easily. Whether Sangyeon wants to or not he is going to find Vivi. And then he is going to find his way back to Jaehyun and live to a ripe old age and be as annoying as possible along the way. Sangyeon isn't sure what has given birth to this certainty but no doubts could shake him even if he is tired and alone and at least wants a destination on this monotonous path. "Jaehyun, some things are fixed. It has to happen. I am going to just quickly save this girl's life and then I'll be right back. You won't even have time to miss me."

"I already miss you now, you monster."

Hearing something like that bolsters Sangyeon. He's excited no matter what. He tells Jaehyun not to worry so much before a quick reminder that he loves him and he'll be back. Hanging up isn't so bad and Sangyeon just hopes his phone battery has gained some longevity in the absence of Jaehyun’s stream of messages. 

Sangyeon climbs to his feet. It still feels like considerable effort even after resting, but his spirit is lighter now that he is more sure than ever that he can save Vivi. Wherever Sangyeon goes he will eventually need to go. He turns to the door he had chosen to sit in front of. This route seems far too easy. And it is. 

Sangyeon forces the chipboard doors open wide enough to let light in along with him. The door scuffs and screeches against the grubby stone floor, but Sangyeon pulls harder and pretends he doesn't mind the groaning of the wood and the bite of splinters in his palms. A narrow opening had projected spectres of the street just beyond the depths of the alcove Sangyeon had taken a seat. After pulling the doors completely open and leaving bare a gap wider than Sangyeon is tall, he can see the sheen of glass doors more clearly as the culprits for ghoulish shadows. He watches the glass carefully. Nothing moves behind it. The only thing moving against the glass is the wavering of his own reflection. 

This should be easy. Even if Sangyeon chose another option the answer would be easy. But breaking the glass doesn't seem right. Surely glass is reinforced in the future to maintain the illusion of endless space whilst protecting the building from intrusion - at least whilst the building was an extant business that must have been the case. Even if a weapon was around, Sangyeon doubts it would be strong enough to shatter an entrance. Breaking glass sounds like far too much effort. 

Sangyeon braces his hands on the pane of glass. The door isn't a push door, it would have been an automatic door whenever people were welcome. There is no power distributing the necessary energy to open the doors and in theory the dead currents should hold the doors fast shut. Regardless of sense, Sangyeon thinks this is the place he is meant to be. Dragging the glass towards the frame activates the mechanism to slide open. Just enough for Sangyeon to slip through but it is more than he'd expected. 

The floor of the interior gleams even in the darkness and Sangyeon’s footsteps echo as though attempting to reach distant walls. But that isn't enough to dwell on. 

Sangyeon walks through the foyer. He wonders what sort of commercial complex this used to be before everyone left. It must have been busy previously, enough for the realisation to hit. Vivi was left behind. And this place is busy enough that the current absence would be noticeable. 

Sangyeon uses the torch on his phone to at least give him an idea of where he should go, even if time guarantees he'll make it to the right place eventually. 

Without being able to tell how long this building has truly been abandoned, Sangyeon finds it strange that the conditions are sterile enough to ward away all intrusion from organic reclamation. Perhaps it hasn't been too long at all. 

There are signs around which don't help Sangyeon find where he needs to go. There are multiple floors with restaurants and shops and activities such as an archery centre. None of the signs have any big red arrows pointing out where Vivi is. So Sangyeon has to shine his torch around to find the nicest looking place to find someone who has been left behind in the evacuation. 

Sangyeon gets another call. But it isn't Jaehyun like Sangyeon expects. 

"Sangyeon, where are you?" 

Sangyeon’s steps falter for a moment, not solely because the path before him is plunged into nothingness once more. He puts his phone on speaker so that he can at least use the torch to advance whilst pretending not to be baffled by this call. 

"Vivi, it's good to hear from you. When are you, by the way?" 

"Does it matter?" Vivi asks. "Jaehyun is worried about you."

Sangyeon’s footsteps stall. Looking around, he feels just as ignorant as ever. "Have you already met Jaehyun? Am I too late?" 

"Oh," Vivi says, gentle and quiet. "I couldn't be sure when I was calling. Haseul still hasn't quite worked out the way to be precise with the time that the calls connect to."

"But Jaehyun called me once, years ago, on my birthday," Sangyeon says before he can consider any reason for that. He remembers a Gyeongwon who has never met him and a Gyeongwon who knew so much about him and the sorts of things he'd like to hear. "Oh. That was from the future too. It is strange that you're calling me now though. There's a Jaehyun around today who called to let me know he is worried."

Sangyeon is aiming for light and conversational. Vivi doesn't respond in kind. "You should stop making Jaehyun worried. Whatever you're doing isn't worth it. Try to remember that next time you get a call from me."

Sangyeon doesn't mention that what he is currently doing is more important than Vivi realises. She wouldn't warn him off his task if she knew he was searching for her, but before Sangyeon can even drop tantalising hints to make her realise her error, Vivi is gone. It doesn't feel fair to hear the ringing silence compensating for the disappearance of Vivi's voice. 

Now that Vivi is gone Sangyeon can't ask why she called at all, when she met Jaehyun, how many other calls she has made, how she knows Haseul. 

Sangyeon could ask Vivi some other time, but he supposes that by the time it all happens he will have seen the events occur anyway. Before that he needs to find Vivi in the first place. 

Sangyeon searches a convenience store, shelves bare inside from garish stickers highlighting special offers. Vivi isn't in the store or the empty storeroom so he supposes that her job isn't exactly like his. He tries a cinema but only disturbs spider carcasses littered around the subwoofers beneath the silver screens. There are locked doors at the cinema, but Sangyeon isn't depending on the coincidence of keys. He doesn't expect they'll be anywhere, so he steels himself with the assurance that Vivi couldn't possibly be locked away with restricted access. Next there are designer outlets, and restaurants, and arcades. In each unit on each floor Sangyeon must fill in the blanks in his mind and picture how busy the complex would have been with so many visitors at the peak of business. But it is silent save for Sangyeon’s breaths and his footsteps and the air he disturbs with his presence. 

On the third floor of the complex Sangyeon finds himself in a small reception area constructed from wood. Behind the counter there are rows of rollerskates lined up tightly aside from a gap in the middle of the second row from the top. Sangyeon raises the beam of his torch and sees the glint of dormant neon tubes twisted into words. He reaches across the counter and slides some cassette cases closer. The plastic is scuffed, not so much that Sangyeon would believe the rectangular cases really have lasted a thousand years, but enough that the cassettes inside might have been real. Sangyeon doesn't recognise the names of the songs or the artists but he supposes gimmicks like this could appeal to a lot of avid fans. 

There is a scattered pile of paper squares and they look familiar. Sangyeon picks up a pen, scrawls out a number that Vivi might be able to dial to call a person who could help her from any moment in time. Jaehyun would probably understand as long as Sangyeon finds Vivi in the first place. 

Right as Sangyeon is about to look elsewhere his eyes catch on one of the card inserts peering through the lacerated plastic. Vivi. Her face and her name are printed amongst a becoming shade of pink. 

For a moment Sangyeon wonders if perhaps he has more searching to do. A celebrity in this time is by no means doing a similar job to Sangyeon but if one considers performing to be customer service then it makes sense. However that doesn't seem quite right. Sangyeon wouldn't be around long enough to search for someone so hard to find and he doesn't see how a Vivi like that could be left behind. 

The further Sangyeon walks into the unit, the more charmed he is by the decor. There is something rustic about it with all the trappings of modernity which had already aged to kitsch by the time he was a teenager. The poster cases lining the walls could contain prints from real films as easily as fiction, Sangyeon can't be sure he has heard of a single title as he walks along the corridor but they all look interesting. One poster catches his eye under the beam of his phone's light and Sangyeon takes the motivation in his stride to continue on this path. 

Vivi on a poster is indication enough. Her eyes glow, pastel sharp through the glass and Sangyeon can't help but smile. They're about to meet and they're going to save each other. 

At the end of the corridor are double doors with opaque windows. Even shining his light right against the surface of the windows in the doors doesn't grant Sangyeon a preview so he pushes through and hopes he won't immediately lose his nerve. Sangyeon doesn't quite lose his nerve, but the slow whirring that greets him into the large room does have him considering the decisions he makes. 

Being alone isn't such a worrying scenario until one is presented with the possibility that they might not be alone at all. Sangyeon casts his gaze around the room and realises quickly why he finds he can see beyond the limits of the torchlight. The room is dipping into the kaleidoscopic murkiness of jewel-filtered light. The splotches of colour rotate around the walls and awaken the energised flutter of holographic stars determined to orbit the discoball anchored to the ceiling. 

Sangyeon switches off the torch on his phone. He might as well save the battery if the room is kind enough to melt away the unseeing dark. For a moment Sangyeon wonders who would have switched on colourful flashes which press dully against the abyssopelagic density of the dark. The atmosphere this lighting creates is significantly moody and a tad gratuitous when there are undoubtedly brighter lights around which could be even more dramatic in how starkly revealing they could be. But the only humanoid figure Sangyeon can see is slumped in a chair in the corner of the room. 

This person has been left behind, that much is certain, but Sangyeon would prefer seeing someone in a livelier position than this. 

As Sangyeon rushes across the room, his strides not quite speeding him over to the source of dread, he wonders whether he might be too late. Whether there exists a timeline in which Sangyeon is too late. 

Sangyeon stumbles to his knees by the time he reaches the chair, but he hasn't confirmed anything yet so he doesn't focus on how quickly he lost the strength in his legs. Even without meeting her often, Sangyeon recognises the person in the chair as Vivi. She looks as though she had dozed off in her seat, but Sangyeon can't imagine what would be so peaceful about this. 

Vivi's skin isn't cool to the touch. 

Sangyeon grabs her hands, squeezes the softness of her palms and feels the near reflexive pressure of her hands squeezing back. 

"Vivi?" Sangyeon says. His voice is hushed for no real reason but he doubts he has it within himself to raise his voice too much. He shakes Vivi's shoulder, says her name a few more times, wonders whether the flutter of her eyelashes is a trick of the dark. "Vivi, please wake up. It's me, Sangyeon. I've come to meet you."

Sangyeon keeps shaking Vivi's shoulder. He sweeps her hair away from her neck and reaches for the skin, warm but without the tell-tale pulse he is hoping for. It doesn't make any sense. Though frantic, Sangyeon can't quite work out why sense matters so much to him as a person who has moved a hundred lifetimes forwards in time. 

And then sense is jostled right over Vivi's shoulder. A wire extending from the back of her neck clipped loosely to connect to another wire which winds its way over to a socket in the wall. Sangyeon pushes the connections of the wire together. Vivi opens her eyes, slowly, sleepily, and lifts her head. Her eyes go wide at the sight of Sangyeon right before her. 

"Vivi," Sangyeon says carefully, "You should have warned me that you're a robot. I thought you might be dead."

Vivi shakes her head, sluggish slow, but she manages to part her lips a moment later. Her voice is soft, just as cautious as Sangyeon feels. "Who are you?" 

"We've actually met before. Or you're going to meet me. Anyway, I'm Sangyeon and I'm going to save your life."

Vivi looks baffled at that, but Sangyeon can't help but smile. He realises a moment too late where he has heard words like this before. Vivi might just save his life too. As much as Sangyeon finds it funny that he is echoing a past he has already seen, Vivi is not in on the joke. The look in her eyes is hesitant, though maybe not as afraid as Sangyeon might be if someone woke him up to tell him the same things he has said. 

"I'm from the past," Sangyeon explains. 

"Like the past with swords and stuff?" Vivi asks. 

A laugh bursts out of Sangyeon’s chest, but not for the reason Vivi's face turns to a frown. "I'm not laughing at you. It's just that I thought you were making fun of me and calling me boring the first time you said that. Or the next time you say it. I can't get my head around this to be honest."

"So no swords?" Vivi asks. 

"No swords. But we have convenience stores. I used to work in one. In my time that's the nearest time portal to where I live and that's where you'll meet me for the first time."

"Oh," Vivi says. There is something very pronounced about that lone syllable and Sangyeon watches as, within a few blinks, Vivi sits up straighter and her eyes shine brighter. "So we're not meeting now?" 

Sangyeon shakes his head. "We are meeting now, but we'll also meet again for the first time. Hopefully we'll keep meeting again lots of times after this too."

Vivi looks steadily at Sangyeon, blue clarity for just a second. And then Vivi tilts her head. "How will we meet again?" 

"I don't know, honestly. But whenever it happens, I will look forward to it."

Vivi reaches for her neck and closes her fingers around the wire protruding from her skin. Her eyes flash, precious sapphire, for just a moment as she disconnects herself. "Sangyeon, what would you do if you had to die so we could meet again?" 

The question is a strange one, but Sangyeon decides the question is just a strange futuristic robot question and nothing more than that. He smiles at Vivi as he helps her up from the chair. "I am sure you'd be able to save me."

Vivi smiles. 

"You're strange."

"This place is strange to me," Sangyeon points out. "Not enough swords."

Vivi laughs at that. "Would you like to dance? The girl from before might have left some of her funny music. I think you'd like it."

Sangyeon feels as though he has missed a step but he hasn't moved and neither has the world. "Girl?" 

Vivi nods, taps the tips of her fingers together almost shyly. She twirls and hurries over to the miniature stage with a DJ booth set up. She waves at Sangyeon from her vantage point, as though she'd never said anything strange. And then she presses some buttons and spreads her arms wide as the music pipes into the room. 

The song is familiar, one that Sangyeon has most recently heard less than a week before. Sooyoung had requested the song at Sangyeon’s wedding reception and twirled Haseul around in her arms. 

Sangyeon walks across the floor and Vivi runs over to meet him. She is cautious and slides one hand into his and secures her other hand at Sangyeon’s shoulder. 

This is strange. But Vivi is a person Sangyeon was always meant to meet. "Was someone else here before me?" 

Vivi hesitates as they sway together but eventually she nods. 

"Who was it?" 

"She never told me her name. She was very pretty though. She took some skates and one of the portals from one of the boutiques on the ground floor. Not every business had the time to clear out all their stock before they panicked and left. There might be one left for you if you wanted one."

"No thank you. I might have to ask my husband about it though. He would be interested in the way you and your friend, that girl, travel."

"Ah," Vivi says. "Jaehyun?" 

"That's the one," Sangyeon agrees. "Did your friend tell you that?" 

"How did you know? She told me a little bit about you both. I thought I would have to wait longer."

"How could I keep you waiting?" Sangyeon asks. "You could come back with us. I think you'd like it, the place I come from."

The song ends and Vivi steps back. "Let's go and find your husband."

Sangyeon isn't so sure about how simple the task would be considering how leaving this street has been impossible for Sangyeon so far. But having met Vivi, Sangyeon thinks that anything is possible. 

On the ground floor of the complex, Sangyeon is surprised to find out just how small the portals are so far into the future. Sangyeon takes one. It fits in Sangyeon’s pocket along with his phone. Vivi takes one and shakes it beside her ear. And with the tip of her finger she traces numerals onto the surface. Sangyeon has seen the numbers before. 

9.8.0.9.

And then Sangyeon is trying to work out the last shape Vivi draws before they're both drenched in light and maintaining steady footing becomes a struggle. 

"Sangyeon, I really could kill you right now." 

The arms that pull Sangyeon close are familiar enough that questioning the current situation doesn't seem worth it. Sangyeon relaxes into Jaehyun. Sangyeon is married to a time traveller. They are in the future right now. Teleporting across distance rather than time must be equally as normal at a time like this. 

"What are you going to do?" Sangyeon asks. "Hug me to death?" 

"That's right," Jaehyun says into Sangyeon’s neck. "I am never going to let go of you until we both eventually die from the combination of old age and loving each other too much."

Sangyeon laughs but he doesn't draw away. He thinks he'd feel Jaehyun tremble if he loosened his grip, so he holds him tightly. 

"At risk of making an awful first impression," Sangyeon says, "I'd like you to meet Vivi. She's a robot from the end of the world and we're going to take her home."

Jaehyun goes rigid in Sangyeon’s arms before pulling away and turning to look at Vivi. He regards her suspiciously before frowning at Sangyeon. "Is she the reason you came back like this? Appearing out of thin air?" 

"That's right. She's also the reason we came here in the first place."

Jaehyun's expression pulls into something remarkably similar to a pout, though Sangyeon suspects he'd deny it to his last breath. "I don't know how I feel about Sangyeon marrying me just so he could meet you."

Vivi smiles, affably demure. "One day you'll be glad."

⠀

Returning home after the honeymoon is strange. Sangyeon doesn't feel like he has had a holiday at all, and he is relieved to have escaped seeing the density of unrest at the end of the world. At home even the busiest rush-hour is peaceful, though Sangyeon peers through his windscreen at the cars idling ahead of him, and he looks at his rearview mirror to see the impatient queue of cars behind him, and wonders whether the evacuation he had missed looked similar to this. 

Despite considering himself humbled by the end of the world, Sangyeon knows his intentions will soon decay. Before long he will be taking every convenience for granted because difficulties are so far removed from his life. 

Sangyeon goes to work, he returns home. When Jaehyun is around, Sangyeon sometimes remembers to ask about Vivi. Where is Vivi, did Vivi really come back to their time, are there any adapters handy to divert electricity from wall sockets and charge Vivi up. Jaehyun's responses tend to be less helpful than desired but he probably isn't being vague just to be difficult. 

Lots of aspects of Jaehyun’s job fall under the category of classified information. Vivi couldn't exactly waltz into the airport alongside Sangyeon and Jaehyun, so her journey using the small, handheld portal needed to be carefully coordinated. 

Jaehyun hadn't any knowledge of anything as complex as the handheld portal so he had to call Haseul to attempt a precise journey. Jaehyun had also confiscated the portal Sangyeon acquired when he was with Vivi. Even if Sangyeon had wanted to use the device, Haseul having enough trouble guessing her way through experimental instructions put him off. He only wishes he had proof that Vivi had left the end of the world behind.

One day, Jaehyun is the person to bring up the subject of Vivi. 

"You do know why she couldn't come through the portal with us," Jaehyun says as he casually opens a wardrobe door. The furniture store is quiet at this time on a week day but Sangyeon still finds it surprising that Jaehyun would bring Vivi up at all when they haven't the luxury of privacy. 

"Is it because she wouldn't be able to go into the airport?" 

"Sort of," Jaehyun says. His voice echoes, as distant as it is close, and then he pulls his head out of the empty wardrobe and offers a kind of smile to Sangyeon. "There are a lot of travel restrictions at the end of the world. Of course money is worth more than all of that so a lot of people still manage to come and go as they please because they can pay pollution fines. Not Vivi though. They wouldn't have even let her in the airport without proof that she could pay."

"What about us?" Sangyeon asks. He thinks the wardrobe he is drawn to is better than the one Jaehyun looked at. It is large enough to hide inside and it is made from solid oak. Jaehyun just raps his knuckles against the side of it listlessly and shrugs. 

"We're not from that time. It is strange that we'd want to go to such an awful place as tourists, but there is still a market for travelling to the end of the world. And our travel is categorised as a gift. We can't afford to pay for the travel but we also can't afford to stay. Someone would have come looking for us if we'd overstayed."

"That doesn't sound fair. They shouldn't have let us in at all then. That would have made more sense."

Jaehyun grins at Sangyeon, wide. "A lot of things aren't fair. But you can't question things too much when you're one of the special ones who gets to flout the rules."

"Oh? You're special, are you?" 

"Would you have fallen in love with me if I wasn't?" 

"You're so annoying," Sangyeon grumbles. "Obviously."

Jaehyun chuckles to himself, glad about nothing at all. And then he says, "Your friend Vivi is special too. But we had to send her back a few more years with the devices she had."

Sangyeon had thought that after a period of quarantine and testing Vivi would be back and Sangyeon could make good on that promise to save her life. Even if he wants to argue against the decision to send Vivi further back, she has already gone. All the notions of spending time with a new friend and helping her to acclimatise to a time which appears ancient are worthless. 

Even if Sangyeon isn't happy, even if he could admit that he's upset about this time travel is none of his concern. Sangyeon doesn't work for the Institute, and he has nothing to do with legislature or deciding when people are allowed to exist.

"That's a shame," Sangyeon notes blandly.

"I'm sorry that you weren't both meant to know each other at the same time."

Sangyeon wants to laugh. That sounds like a ridiculous reason to apologise. It is doubtful that Jaehyun had anything to do with the decision. 

"Maybe I got it wrong and I wasn't supposed to look out for her myself. Maybe I was just supposed to pass her over to you and Hemsut. Maybe that's the only way I could save her from being left behind."

"That was a lot of maybes. You saved her. Even if it was just from one situation for one day, that is still saving someone. You don't have to save someone from certain death to make a difference."

Sangyeon shrugs. He doesn't want to write Jaehyun's words off as weak platitudes, but he doesn't feel like he did what he was supposed to. 

"It is strange. I don't know what is going to happen to her. Even if it is none of my business, it feels like I never helped Vivi in the first place."

"If it makes you feel any better, whatever is going to happen to Vivi has already occurred by now. So she's probably still here in this time."

"It doesn't make me feel better," Sangyeon says. 

Jaehyun sighs. Even as he complains about not knowing how to fix things, Sangyeon is glad that he's tried. 

°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠙⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

The Jaehyun who comes to the hotel isn't Sangyeon’s Jaehyun. He looks just like Sangyeon’s Jaehyun aside from the welts across his face beneath a crusting of grit and the tar black marks streaking across burgundy smears on his white shirt. His hands are trembling as he reaches for Sangyeon. 

The hotel isn't the most prestigious around but Sangyeon has had the image of pristine surroundings and service without boundaries drilled into him in the time he has worked here. He leads Jaehyun out of the foyer and into the service corridor behind the reception. 

Even though the corridor is dim, Sangyeon can't help but wince at the state of Jaehyun. He allows this Jaehyun to grasp at his hand but things don't quite feel right. 

"When are you from?" Sangyeon asks. 

Jaehyun shakes his head. "I can't say. I need things to change, so I won't tell you that. You're working overnight tonight, aren't you?" 

Sangyeon hesitates. He had seen a gap in the rota and hadn't yet mentioned it, but someone would need to stay over to cover it. Sangyeon had hoped he could fake his ignorance to the point that he could slip away when his shift ends so somebody else would have to cancel their new year plans. But it sounds like he will end up having to be the one to inform Jaehyun tonight that they won't be together at midnight. 

"I might be working overnight as well as the day shift."

"Good," Jaehyun says, his hands trembling even as he brings them to cradle Sangyeon’s face between them. Jaehyun's palms are rough and filthy but Sangyeon isn't allowed to mind it. If he brings it up it might not be something that can be changed. 

"Are you going to be mad at me for cancelling our plans?" Sangyeon asks. 

Jaehyun shakes his head. "Never. No. Even if I sound like I am angry when you tell me, please just stay at work tonight."

"I promise," Sangyeon says. "You know I love you, don't you?" 

Jaehyun nods, presses together his lips so that the splits that have begun to scab look more like seams. Sangyeon is careful as he brings his hands to Jaehyun's face. He won't acknowledge the injuries for the sake of rules that he doesn't really understand but even so he doesn't want to hurt Jaehyun by handling him too carelessly. All the same, Jaehyun's breath hitches and there must be a sting that Sangyeon hasn't been conscious of. 

Sangyeon looks at the reluctant smile on Jaehyun's face, wonders just what it is that makes Jaehyun look like this whenever he retraces a day where he must meet Sangyeon. 

"Is it bad that even though you're not my Jaehyun I still want to kiss you?" Sangyeon asks, hoping to at least trick a more genuine happiness from Jaehyun's mouth. It almost works because Jaehyun does laugh, a minute scoff as he hisses back the rest of the sound. 

"It's not bad," Jaehyun says. "I'm always yours, no matter when I am from. And now that you've said you want to kiss me I will be really disappointed if you don't."

Sangyeon laughs. He'll have to remember that every Jaehyun is his Jaehyun. He kisses this Jaehyun, careful of the cuts at his mouth, and feels the rigid tension of desperation. 

This Jaehyun is different from Sangyeon’s Jaehyun, even if he claims not to be. He is cautious at first but he leans more heavily into Sangyeon, exhaustion trickling out of him even as he tries to hold it all back, even when he pulls away to swipe away his tears. 

Sangyeon pulls Jaehyun so his head is on Sangyeon’s shoulder. Sobs peter out into whines at the back of Jaehyun's throat and Sangyeon hates the sound. Hates the crumbling grief of a Jaehyun that Sangyeon shouldn't have met yet. 

"Please don't leave me on my own," Jaehyun whispers. 

"I won't. I promise that no matter what happens I will be here."

Jaehyun squeezes his eyes shut tight and Sangyeon holds Jaehyun until he stops crying. And then he holds him a little longer just to make sure he's stopped himself too. 

°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠙⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

Sangyeon has ensured the restaurant on the third floor has been turned down in time for the housekeeping staff to clean up before everything must be set for breakfast in the morning. The task always seems more difficult on nights like this when the hotel bars are brimming with guests dancing and chatting and waiting for the countdown to midnight to come. 

Sangyeon still has time to wait, just under an hour and a half, but he wonders whether he'd even manage to get his call connected at the peak of the night when so many other people would be testing the capacity of the mobile signal towers that link everyone. He's hopeful that a positive attitude will result in a positive outcome and, even if not in person, he could spend midnight with the person he loves the most. 

Jaehyun hadn't sounded incredibly pleased that Sangyeon wouldn't be home tonight but Sangyeon had tried not to mind it. The Jaehyun who visited from the future was adamant that the Jaehyun of the present wouldn't be mad in the long run and Sangyeon is still counting on that now. 

He signs off the booklet to hand over to the management before the inspection. If the restaurant hasn't been closed down to the exact specifications of the guidebook the restaurant team can't head up to the bars to assist with the volume up there and the team will definitely be vocal in their complaints if they must redo all their work again before the end of the shift. His handwriting is careless but he needs to rush it just so he can check his phone a second sooner. There's a message waiting for him from Jaehyun. Even without opening the message the first line makes Sangyeon smile. He quickly sends a response, an apology and a promise and a reminder that he loves Jaehyun. 

He'll work something out, no matter what cost, just to be able to greet the new year with Jaehyun. He wonders whether it is silly to set so much stock in one night, but without this night five years ago they'd have nothing. 

Sangyeon puts his phone away and catches up to the rest of the team as they head to the night manager's office. There are still things which need to be redone but the manager points the beam of their torch at the offending mistakes rather than demanding everything is closed and cleaned from scratch; a chair with a chipped leg should be replaced, the water jug needs to be cleaned again, the wrong menus are stacked in the greeter's podium, several napkins had been overlooked when sending the load to the laundry to be cleaned for the next night's service. The team dutifully work through the tasks, though there are grumbles about how typical problem areas such as the lampshades and the insect traps being perfectly dusted weren't even mentioned. 

The restaurant can finally close and Sangyeon is glad about that much. He stretches the stiffness in his back and checks his phone again. He is an hour and twenty-odd minutes from midnight and he'll still have five hours after that before he can go home and collapse into bed beside Jaehyun. 

Sangyeon breathes. He can be patient. But he wonders whether his message from earlier had reached its destination. 

Perhaps expecting Jaehyun to mope around complaining about his solitude on such an important day is selfish, but Sangyeon has had to cover shifts over random nights and watched his phone battery drain away just because Jaehyun couldn't survive a second without relaying every minute detail of his misery. To have been left alone like this is strange. Sangyeon checks and his message has been delivered and seen. 

Jaehyun finding people to spend the new year with is good. Better he is distracted by company than stuck with an inefficient outlet for his misery. Though thinking so positively doesn't prevent that second of hope that the person calling Sangyeon with impeccable timing is Jaehyun.

The call is from an unknown number and Sangyeon is still denying the possibility that Jaehyun is looking for extra ways to contact him. Jaehyun is busy and wouldn't contact Sangyeon like this. Sangyeon answers the call to ragged breathing. 

Of course the most obvious caller is one Sangyeon had almost forgotten about. Months had passed since the last call like this, calls from unknown numbers with nothing but the harsh breathing of fear on the other end. The difference with this call is that someone does answer when Sangyeon says hello. 

There is a sob which catches in the throat of the caller before they sniff loudly and lower their voice to the rasping whisper for help. 

"I wouldn't know who you are, let alone how to help you," Sangyeon says. 

"Please," comes the broken whine. "I need you to help me, Sangyeon."

Hearing his name like this chills Sangyeon’s spine, but he isn't entirely sure why. Telemarketers know Sangyeon’s name before they call him so losing anonymity isn't the most outlandish thing to happen to him, but Sangyeon doesn't like the sound of his name when it comes through the phone in this person's voice. 

"Who are you?" Sangyeon asks. Realistically he doesn't have much time before the fact that he is missing becomes suspicious. 

"We met at that new year party a couple of years ago," comes the reply, frantic on the shuddering cadence of fear. "I don't know if you remember me, but my name is Longguo, and you're the only person who can help me."

Sangyeon feels his breath freeze in his chest. Something clearly isn't right about this. A person Longguo has only met once couldn't possibly be the only one he could rely on. But Sangyeon wonders whether all the calls cycling around impossible time came from a Longguo who knew Sangyeon better, or had known him for longer. Even if such a timeline exists, Sangyeon isn't in it right now and he hardly knows Longguo. 

"I'm not sure whether I can help you."

"You have to," Longguo sobs. "It's Jaehyun." 

It isn't until Sangyeon has parked at the airport that he considers this is different to the promise he made to Jaehyun a few hours ago. Sangyeon sighs and drums his fingers on his steering wheel. He'll find Longguo, try to make this stranger pull himself together, and go back to work. Sangyeon will be back where he is supposed to be in no time. He sighs. He gets out of his car. The night is cold but the carpark stretches on in every direction with the eager glimmering of floodlights watching over all of the cars. 

The drive to the airport had been easy and the return journey will likely be the same, but Sangyeon feels like he really has been inconvenienced by this journey even with the warning that Jaehyun was doing something wrong. Sangyeon didn't believe it, but he needed to at least calm down a person who could only rely on strangers.

The problem with accusations is that they invite scrutiny. As ridiculous as Sangyeon had thought Jaehyun's accusation about Longguo trying to kill him years ago was, hearing an accusation directly reflecting the first one settles with the bias in Sangyeon’s mind. He knows the man he has married, and he knows that man isn't the sort to kill. 

Sangyeon tries not to drag his feet. At least if he hurries to find Longguo he can hurry back to work soon afterwards. Longguo said he was somewhere in terminal 1. Sangyeon isn't pleased with being given such a vague clue but he gets text messages periodically when Longguo wants to ensure that Sangyeon is on the way. This is the place Sangyeon used to work and he knows it far better than he would like to, even now. 

Sangyeon doesn't look too hard, just circuits around the floors at the terminal looking for someone who looks like they are hiding. Sangyeon spends a few moments longer on the floor he has been to more times than he would like. Sangyeon isn't looking for Longguo in the 7-eleven though. The person standing behind the counter isn't anyone that Sangyeon recognises and it seems like a shame not to see a familiar face as much as it is a relief to think that the people he used to know have also moved on from the stasis of the 7-eleven. 

A significant part of Sangyeon is hoping for Jaehyun to put in an appearance, but no matter where Sangyeon stands to pretend to be here for casual reasons there isn't that familiar stirring in the empty timeless air. Even without the obvious passage of time, a light rattle sounds from one of the aisles in the convenience store. Sangyeon walks over to the back wall where the pharmacy shelves are. A box lies on the floor and Sangyeon finds it comforting in a way that would have annoyed him to no end a few years ago. Sangyeon picks up the box, turns it over in his hands and wonders where the sense of deja vu might originate, and places the box in the vacant space on the shelf. 

Sangyeon leaves the 7-eleven and supposes he must be in that same moment he entered seeing as he never bought anything. He still can't work out how Jaehyun managed to find the various combinations which made up the same price. Sangyeon hasn't requested a payment of ₩9809 in a very long time but he still remembers that no two occasions that he'd had to ask for it were ever the same. He wonders how different things would be now if he had never been curious about Jaehyun. But even that is confusing. Jaehyun might only have appeared in front of Sangyeon precisely because of that curiosity. 

Sangyeon is still trying to work out which was the main factor in bringing a time travelling Jaehyun into his life when he reaches the top of the escalator to the fourth floor at the terminal. 

Sitting in plain sight at the food court is Longguo. He lifts his head, almost as though he knew the exact moment Sangyeon would arrive, and his face crumples into anguished relief. 

The weight of Longguo staggering into Sangyeon is a bit much but it is only polite to keep him upright as he trembles and weeps. 

"I thought you were hiding from him," Sangyeon says as he listlessly pats Longguo's back. He is sure that Longguo can feel how little he cares for the action, but being convincing isn't his main priority. 

Sangyeon buys Longguo a warm drink from the irritated workers still manning a kiosk so close to the new year. The coffeeshops have all closed for the night already but this instant coffee from a shop where sandwiches have been left out long enough for the corners to curl will have to do. Quality doesn't matter. Holding warmth between a person's palms is just a psychological comfort at best. It will be enough for Longguo tonight. 

Once they find a table in the food court which is far away enough from sleepy travellers, Sangyeon asks, "What happened today? What did Jaehyun do?" 

But Longguo's eyes are unfocused and misty and the question is greeted by whatever Longguo intended to say all along. 

"Time travel is too much for some people," Longguo says, voice thin and watery in the hush of the night. Weary chatter and the clanking of concessions closing around the airport terminal echo around the vast atrium, yet Longguo's voice reaches Sangyeon in spite of that. His words don't possess strength but Sangyeon’s desperation to hear them gives them presence. Longguo's shoulders round inwards and his hands tremble around the paper cup of coffee Sangyeon bought for him. Sangyeon expects Longguo to confess that time travel is too much for him. Instead he lifts his gaze and says, "Your man, he doesn't cope with it well."

Jaehyun traversing the impossible expanses of indistinct imagination has been a constant for Sangyeon. Jaehyun has always meant to go beyond the now and beyond memory. Fixed and variable timelines don't mean too much to Sangyeon but his layman's perspective of it all makes sense like this. Jaehyun travelling through time is a constant. He copes with it well. 

Sangyeon hears his own irritation on the back of an exhale. But he should at least pretend to be polite. 

"What about the others? Gyeongwon and Sooyoung. How do they cope in your opinion?" 

Longguo takes a sip of coffee and winces. He says, "Well enough to try to calm your man down. He can't handle seeing things that are beyond him. There must have been some errors on the psychological tests done before we're accepted to the academy. The others have had to stop him from using a weapon against me."

"A weapon," Sangyeon repeats. He's tired. And seeing that Longguo isn't suffering from any physical harm he is ready to go home. 

Longguo nods. "I find it hard to imagine that any normal person would see a weapon for the first time and attempt to attack someone with it. At best he's irresponsible, but at worst… Your man intended for me to die. None of us had ever seen a device like that before but we witnessed what it could do and how a single stab compacted human tissue enough to rip through the host's own body."

Perhaps it is exhaustion, or the expiration of panic after seeing that the danger doesn't exist, but Sangyeon finds that he doesn't quite care. His sigh blusters heavily from between his lips and Longguo stiffens where he sits. 

"You don't believe me," Longguo says. 

"It's not that," Sangyeon lies, "but the things you are saying just don't make any sense to me. You're saying that Jaehyun has been trying to kill you. You're saying that he's even tried today but, look around, Longguo, he isn't here!" 

"You think I'm lying. He chased me with a weapon and I had to hide so that he wouldn't kill me. Just because he's looking for me somewhere else, it doesn't mean he didn't do it."

The thing is, Sangyeon doesn't believe Longguo at all. Jaehyun isn't the sort of person to pursue a person with the aim of hurting them. For all Sangyeon’s thoughts about people spending more time with Jaehyun - impossible loops of time which multiplied weeks into months - there are certain things that others would never know about a person's character. 

"Jaehyun wouldn't do that."

Longguo smiles, not a kind expression. "So you only believe things you have seen with your own eyes? Do you need me to show you what kind of person he really is?" 

Sangyeon stands from his seat. "You're fine. I'm going back to work."

Leaving isn't as simple as telling Longguo and making it happen. Longguo's hand is tight around Sangyeon’s wrist. 

"I don't think you should go. Not yet."

"Depending on how you look at things I've already gone. There's no point in me waiting around when experiencing time doesn't stop it from happening."

Longguo stands and pulls Sangyeon closer. "Even if you're already at home in the future, something else needs to happen before you can get there."

Sangyeon can't be bothered to attempt to work out what that is supposed to mean. He doesn't want to know anyway. Only he tugs his arm free from Longguo and turns to see Jaehyun standing around thirty metres away at the entrance to the toilets. Whether Sangyeon knows Jaehyun better than anyone or not, he doubts anyone has ever seen him drenched in blood before. 

"Jaehyun?" 

"You can't go over there," Longguo warns, grip on Sangyeon’s arm tightening. 

"I need to see if he's alright."

"He's fine," Longguo says. He pulls Sangyeon back as soon as Jaehyun takes his first step. 

Sangyeon doesn't understand how so many people, even with the distractions offered by exhaustion, won't spare even a glance for a man covered in so much blood. He is more solid than the apparitions which appear after a ruckus but kindness is in short supply when people are so determined to mind their own business. But this is Jaehyun and he is the furthest thing from trouble. From this distance Sangyeon can't see where the blood is coming from and as much as he wouldn't want to know that it is Jaehyun's blood, he needs to make sure that it isn't. 

"What did you do to him?" Sangyeon asks Longguo. He doesn't get a response so the answer can't be a good one. With silence as confirmation enough, Sangyeon punches Longguo and relishes the way Longguo staggers backwards. "I'm going to kill you."

Longguo straightens up, expression stiff. "Come on then, quickly," he says. "Before you lose your nerve." 

It makes sense now. Sangyeon looks at Longguo and he sees something closer to the truth than he'd thought he might see in a stranger. Words are too easily taken for granted. Seeing a shine of fear in someone's eyes, hearing the tremor in their voice, feeling hope in the cautious reach of a hand are all things that could fool Sangyeon. Being fooled is easy but Jaehyun had avoided it. Longguo had always been this man, the one lying to Sangyeon as part of a deceit, the one challenging Sangyeon with people all around, the one who was trying to kill Jaehyun. 

"You're really s--" 

"Sangyeon!" 

The voice calling Sangyeon’s name sounds almost hesitant, as though they don't really want to be heard raising their voice. For a moment Sangyeon is glad that he hears it. Vivi is sprinting towards him, determination on her face as she dodges around the dithering of a couple trying not to quarrel too loudly in public. Sangyeon has seen all too well how bigger commotions deter onlookers, but he wonders just how many people are as enraptured watching Vivi as he is. 

Having both Vivi and Jaehyun here is a relief. Sangyeon only hopes that something can be done about Longguo, even if he causes the sort of scene any squabbling couple would be praying for as a distraction. But Longguo isn't just holding onto Sangyeon like he is ready to take a hostage. Another Longguo is charging right at Vivi. 

Vivi's expression flutters into surprise half a second before she is tackled to the polished white ground and something in Longguo's hand catches the light as he raises it above his head. The swing of his arm to strike Vivi blurs in a slower arc than it should but Sangyeon can't do anything to stop it when another pair of hands grips onto Sangyeon and drags him away. 

"Jaehyun! Get Vivi!" Sangyeon shouts when he feels the failure in his struggle. Jaehyun almost looks as though he shakes his head, but Sangyeon won't accept a response like that. "Jaehyun, help her!" 

Sangyeon can only hope that Jaehyun's injury is only minor and he'd be capable of helping Vivi. He doesn't have the chance to see whether Jaehyun does help Vivi, not when a third pair of arms make struggling an impossibility. No matter how hard he twists, there isn't any route of escape. There are too many arms gripping Sangyeon tightly and he can't even begin to question how there are four Longguos in this one moment in time. 

None of this matters, of course. 

The three Longguos bundle Sangyeon into one of the lift cabs and push the button to the ground floor. Considering the circumstances they don't think much of the situation. Sangyeon looks between their matching blank faces until he meets the eyes of the Longguo who keeps watching him whilst the other two remain silent. The thing is that this Longguo who keeps looking at Sangyeon is smiling, an almost hopeful expression. He is dressed smartly, a bit flashier than he might normally dress if compared to the other Longguos, but it had taken a while to get this Longguo to warm up to a smile on the day they met. 

"Have we met yet?" 

The Longguo with the smile nods. One of the others glances over their shoulder, a blank stare that makes Sangyeon feel oddly empty. 

"I helped you to find your phone," the smiling Longguo says. He hesitates for a moment before adding, "I really enjoyed being with you. Even though it has taken a few years for you, I am glad I have been able to meet you again so soon."

Sangyeon isn't glad at all. The lift reaches the ground floor and Sangyeon knocks Longguo's hand away when he reaches for him. There is something alongside the surprise in his expression as he looks down at his rejected hand and then at Sangyeon. The other two Longguos aren't so reserved and drag Sangyeon out of the lift. 

"Do us a favour and stay quiet until we find your man. We wouldn't want to involve anyone else needlessly."

Sangyeon looks at the Longguo who had greeted him on the fourth floor. His eyes are dry and there isn't a trace of the sort of fear which made Sangyeon wonder whether he was callous for not believing the truth. "We were just with him."

"Not him. I don't know when he is from, and I have seen more than both of the others. That fourth one, the one who stopped that girl. He might know."

Even if none of the Longguos with Sangyeon right now know anything, he has already realised himself who that Jaehyun is. The Jaehyun on the fourth floor already came to visit Sangyeon when it was the early evening. That was the Jaehyun who begged Sangyeon to stay at work tonight.

Sangyeon’s footsteps falter and he barely avoids falling to the floor thanks to how quickly the earliest of the Longguos notices and reaches for him. 

"If that Jaehyun has killed someone, one of you, for example, what would the result of that be?" Sangyeon asks. They reach the automatic doors and the overhead blast of heat is just a moment of heaven before the cold night draws them out into the illuminated night. The pace is faster and Sangyeon can barely keep up enough not to fall flat on his face. Pulling himself free is too much of a dream for Sangyeon right now. However curiosity spurs him to he ask, "Would all the future versions of yourself disappear?" 

The two Longguos dragging Sangyeon along with them don't say anything. The third, the one whose mouth might be moving so much due to the satisfaction of a night well spent, says, "Actually that might not be the case. For one of my assignments I was reading some articles and I think it was Kwon in the year 2010 who posits there are multiple timelines running in tandem. The timelines which share fixed points all occur in the exact same frame before splitting and continuing as expected. Miyawaki developed this further and by 2014 suggested there was evidence to support the theory that time travelling into the fulcrum of a fixed point presents an opportunity to slip into one of the concurrent timelines. Of course theorists have already presented the idea that multiple timelines exist, so it isn't--"

"Will you give it a rest?" 

The Longguo from the night they met closes his mouth and smiles at Sangyeon. 

"I thought it was interesting," Sangyeon says. He doesn't exactly understand but he hadn't expected to hear so much from any of the Longguos, especially the truthful ones. "Which one of you thinks you're going to get it then?" 

They have reached a wire fence and two of the Longguos pull open the tear to push Sangyeon through it. He sinks into the hard ditch and his ankle aches as he tries to stand. The Longguo from new year's takes Sangyeon’s hand and helps him up. 

"Look at the situation, Sangyeon. We've brought you here for a reason. The other two aren't saying anything, but they know more than I do. I think it is you, Sangyeon." 

Sangyeon can't imagine a situation where he would tell a person that they'd die with a smile. He slaps Longguo's hands away. This isn't for anything like Sangyeon’s protection. But he's on the wrong side of a boundary and there isn't much he can do when he's outnumbered and one of the Longguos is making a phonecall to a person Sangyeon wishes they wouldn't.

"Hang up the phone."

"Jaehyun, I think your Sangyeon is going to get really hurt if you don't get here quickly. You're looking in the wrong place. Do you remember where you were the first time you tried to kill me?"

Sangyeon swings at Longguo and his fist connects hard enough that he staggers into the one who has remained silent all the while. Sangyeon isn't sure why the silent Longguo grips onto the one who made the call, but it gives him a moment to shake off the grip of the Longguo who keeps trying to act like he can be nice. 

"Don't touch me, you liar. You're not going to hurt Jaehyun."

"You don't understand," Longguo says, no trace of a smile. Maybe the day they met has faded too long ago for him too. "He's going to try to kill me."

"So you're going to get him first?" Sangyeon asks. He grabs Longguo and sweeps his feet from under him. He's so weak, alone and determined that he knows better. "Meeting you was a mistake. I should have ignored you and even that would have been too good for you. You're worthless."

Sangyeon isn't surprised by the kick in his ribs. It seems like it has come a moment late but expecting it isn't enough to sap the pain from Sangyeon’s side. He splutters but he doesn't catch his breath quickly enough to avoid the hands of the Longguo assuring the other two that Sangyeon never meant it, that they shouldn't hurt him. 

Sangyeon isn't sure why the Longguo from the night they first met is so wet behind the ears. A lot must have happened between that night and this one for these three versions to be so different. There isn't a point in dwelling on that for too long. It would be a waste of time when he has the opportunity to escape whilst the most pathetic of the Longguos has chosen a hill like defending Sangyeon to die on. Sangyeon doesn't need him to do that but, if not now, when else could he take the chance to run. 

Sangyeon’s ankle is tender and every second stride feels precarious when he can't gain stable footing amongst all the whorls and ditches, but he keeps going. He slips his phone from his pocket and keeps going. It is too close to midnight, or maybe Jaehyun's phone is off, so he can't get through. Sangyeon breathes deep, runs flat out until the instruction to leave a message after the tone. 

"Jaehyun, stay away. Don't come to the airport. Or if you do, just fetch Vivi from the fourth floor of terminal 1. Meet me at my car." Something in the message is lacking, and even out of breath whilst checking that the Longguos are far enough behind, he adds, "I love you, Lee Jaehyun."

Sangyeon hangs up and grips his phone tight as he runs as fast as he can. 

Growing up, Sangyeon has forgotten how much he loves to run. Running 5km for the sake of routine is nothing like true running. Sangyeon misses being a kid where every time he had to run felt like running for his life. 

Just like back when Sangyeon was a child, his whole body aches, but the breath condensing in front of his face fades to the twinkle of distant lights. Sangyeon could expend all the energy in his body right now and he might just be able to catch up with a plane. He keeps running, just because he can, and not one of the Longguos can keep up with him. 

Exhilaration like this doesn't come often enough. There is a laugh caught between Sangyeon's teeth. He decides that when he is as close as he dares to the halo of the airfield at night he will turn back and run for home. 

Even with Sangyeon’s ankle screaming at him to stop and his muscles quivering, he can't stop. He could run forever and ever and never have to stop. But after veering away and running back towards the fence, Sangyeon swears he sees someone running towards him. There are three Longguos behind Sangyeon and he can see them all struggling. Ahead of Sangyeon there is someone still running towards him. He slows his pace. It would be easier to keep them all in check by gathering them together, though he suspects the fourth Longguo has already seen all of this. 

Sangyeon wonders which direction he is supposed to run in. He wonders which way he has already run and which way he could run to trick even a person who has seen this all before. 

A moment of hesitation and Sangyeon is almost glad that he isn't quite crafty enough to work out how to evade this extra chaser. 

Jaehyun isn't quite as good at running as Sangyeon. Sangyeon runs faster. 

"You didn't get my message?" Sangyeon shouts. His voice isn't as loud as he thinks it should be, but running for so long wouldn't make shouting any easier. 

"No. But I got his," Jaehyun says. He slows to a jog and crouches with his hands on his knees. "Sangyeon, my heart is about to explode. You can't make people as scared as I am run."

Sangyeon laughs. He reaches for Jaehyun and pulls him closer, presses his lips to Jaehyun's temple. "You chose to run, I didn't make you. Come on, we need to find Vivi and get home."

"She's here too?" Jaehyun asks weakly. He grips Sangyeon’s hand and huffs, irritated, before trying to speed up to the sort of pace Sangyeon wants. 

"Sangyeon, please!" The voice echoes louder than it has any right to but Sangyeon isn't sure why Jaehyun is the one to slow down. "You don't know what he is going to do to you."

Jaehyun stops, stands completely still at that, too close to the taxiway and nowhere near close enough to their escape. Sangyeon feels the tug on his arm and he has to stop too. Jaehyun gives Sangyeon a look before turning to face the approaching trio. 

"What is that supposed to mean? What do you think I am going to do to my husband?" 

The Longguo from the new year party comes the closest. His expression is stark, afraid, like he really believes something bad could come by Jaehyun's hands. 

"We've seen you," Longguo says, "Covered in blood. It's you, it has to be. They know that they can't tell me what I haven't seen yet, but they told me it was you." 

Longguo gestures towards the two standing just behind him and he looks like he could cry. 

"Who are you?" Jaehyun asks. 

"He's from the new year party," Sangyeon says quietly. 

"I forgot just how much of an idiot you used to be," Jaehyun says. "I wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you, and that was well before you turned into either of those conniving twats behind you. They told you that I am going to hurt Sangyeon? Does that make sense?" 

"Who knows what you're capable of," Longguo retorts. 

"But I know exactly what you are capable of," Jaehyun says. He looses his hand free of Sangyeon’s and gets close enough to Longguo to shove him to the ground. The Longguo who hasn't said a word helps New Year to his feet. Sangyeon sees the exchange of something small before they part but Jaehyun is too busy eyeing up the Longguo who brought them all here. 

"Jaehyun, wait, get back," Sangyeon warns as he tries to pull Jaehyun back. He must be too late because Longguo, the clumsy loner who Sangyeon first met, lunges for Jaehyun with a flash of something against his palm. 

Jaehyun loses his footing and stumbles back further than Sangyeon’s shove. It is good. He's safe for a moment longer. And then the silent Longguo sighs, hefts some grit into the line of his shoulders, and gives the new year Longguo a hard enough push that he knocks into Sangyeon. And whatever he is holding hurts. 

"No," Longguo says, frantic as he retreats. "I didn't do it. Sangyeon, not you, I'm sorry. I need to go back and fix this, Sangyeon, you know I wouldn't--" 

Longguo is gone. As are the other two who brought him here. 

Something surges up against the back of Sangyeon’s throat. Acrid heat dribbles out of his mouth and settles thick on his tongue.

"Sangyeon?" Jaehyun's voice sounds thin, barely there. Sangyeon hears him get up but he can't move. He can't let Jaehyun see. "Sangyeon, what was he going on about?" 

Sangyeon shakes his head but he knows there's nothing he can do. He's gagging on the taste of his own curdled blood and Jaehyun, even as reluctant as he is, has a stronger grip than Sangyeon can resist. Even if Sangyeon closes his eyes he can't close his ears to the way Jaehyun's voice stretches reed thin with his rejection of what he sees. 

"No. Sangyeon, no, this didn't happen."

Sangyeon can't hold back the liquid forcing its way out of his mouth. He can't breathe and every attempt to draw in air sears against thousand points all over his body. But when Sangyeon opens his eyes he doesn't want to see Jaehyun panicking, not even through the blur of being hard to focus on. 

"Is it bad?" Sangyeon asks as brightly as he can. 

Jaehyun shakes his head roughly and grips Sangyeon gingerly and brings him slowly to the ground. Sangyeon is glad for the moment to relax and not worry about how soon his legs might give out. 

"Let's just have a little rest," Jaehyun says. He sniffs and dabs at his eye with the back of a wrist to catch a tear. When he moves his hand away there is a smudge of red on his cheek. 

Ah, Sangyeon thinks. The blood is draining out of his body all over. That's what the gaping pain is. 

"You know how much I hate cardio," Jaehyun says evenly, desperately. "Then we can go home. Or the hospital. Whatever. There are worse ways to spend a new year."

Sangyeon understands that much but he doubts he'll ever get to find out what a worse new year feels like. 

This is unfair. Longguo (all three of him when that itself is an impossibility) cheated. He had something which has no contemporary equal to work as a defence. He vanished into thin air. Jaehyun wouldn't have had a chance either. 

Sangyeon clings to Jaehyun, glad to ascertain his solid existence. But there are no guarantees Longguo couldn't come back to kill him too. 

Sangyeon looks past the premature grief in Jaehyun's face. Sangyeon loves him so much. 

Sangyeon wants him to live. 


	2. Jaehyun

#####  °⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠙⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

Sangyeon’s eyes keep fluttering, open and shut, and Jaehyun wonders how many times he will have to feel the fissures in his heart widen as another last breath pumps more of Sangyeon’s blood through the punctures all over his body. 

It was a while ago when Jaehyun was training at the academy and Gyeongwon's face drew into mortified lines when she saw just what sorts of weapons had been developed over hundreds of years of vindictive perseverance. Jaehyun hadn't wanted to think too much about the implications. He had clowned around, asked if the device was used to make Swiss cheese in the future, wondered why Longguo was alone in his silence away from uncomfortable laughter. 

Jaehyun finds it difficult to keep track of all the trips he has taken and where they fit into his personal timeline but he wishes he'd possessed the foresight to pay more attention to moments like that. He can't be sure whether the Longguo from that day was memorising the methods to use the lace blade or whether Longguo had been shocked to encounter the very thing which revealed exactly how rotten he was. 

Jaehyun is certain of how the name of the device belies its impact. Lace blade sounds almost elegant. But Jaehyun remembers the wry way the instructor had explained that the knife was colloquially named for the way holes formed intricately random patterns with holes. This isn't anything to laugh about. 

There is heat spilling out onto Jaehyun's lap and he can't help but wonder how many holes a lace blade inflicts as it compacts adjacent tissue into needle-thin ballistics which tear through the victim's body. Sangyeon’s body is beyond easy repair. 

Everywhere Jaehyun touches leaves his palms glossed with darkness which must shine red in the glow of the airstrip. But he refuses to see it. He holds onto Sangyeon and carefully sweeps his hair out of his eyes. 

Jaehyun's throat is raw and he's yelled into the white noise of aircraft engines long enough to know that nobody is coming. Longguo planned everything precisely, or Jaehyun was complacent, and there's no way of contacting anybody for help not when the help that arrives today wouldn't have a solution. No matter what Jaehyun considers, he can't leave Sangyeon here. Not like this. Not when it is a cold night seeping into a new day in a new month in a new year. 

Sangyeon exhales noisily, a laboured hiss permeating his attempt to breathe before an almighty blast swallows the sound. The flashes of colour in the distance paint Sangyeon’s face starkly and it is like he knows, like he has known all along. 

Sangyeon’s eyes close. His tongue wets the scarlet cracks of his lips. When he opens his eyes once more his gaze slides beyond Jaehyun to the crackling fireworks behind him. The bare movement of Sangyeon’s lips has Jaehyun leaning closer and cursing himself for jostling the weakening weight of Sangyeon across his lap. But words like this beg to be heard and Jaehyun won't refuse them their rights just for the sake of celebrations he has seen four times over with the love of his life. 

"I wish I could go back," Sangyeon says, strain tethering his words to the back of his throat, "to the day we met."

Sangyeon’s eyes meet Jaehyun's and the candour in his countenance is masked by misplaced bravery. There's no need for it here, not when tremors are cleaving devastated fissures right through Jaehyun's body. 

"I'll take you back," Jaehyun promises. "Stop being silly and get up so I can take you."

Sangyeon scoffs, winces against the gurgling coughs which widen each wound he has. "No. Just. Remember with me."

Jaehyun shakes his head but warmth spills over Jaehyun's cheeks in the same way clotted heat seeps between the fingers Jaehyun is holding against Sangyeon’s chest. He hates how the explosions in the sky of a fresh year jolt Sangyeon closer to consciousness yet each one drags more blood from him. He wants silence and he at least wants Sangyeon for a few minutes more. 

"I wish we'd never met," Jaehyun says. "I wish you didn't love me. You wouldn't be here if you'd stayed away."

Sangyeon’s eyes fall shut and he shakes his head with the barest of motions. "You're not allowed to wish for that." The rise and fall of his chest is too shallow and Jaehyun doesn't have enough hands to suffocate the bleeding and to reinforce the loosening grip Sangyeon has of his clothes. But Sangyeon is better at making do with a bad situation and something in him winds up his grasp. He says, "Even if we were worst enemies, I would still have found a way to make sure it wasn't you."

Jaehyun shakes his head but the splash of a tear lands on Sangyeon’s cheek. Sangyeon doesn't say anything about it when he opens his eyes but he regards Jaehyun through the glint of distant kaleidoscopes. He parts his lips, dark with the depths of his twilight at his mouth, and his words catch against his lips and slur together as he tries to shut Jaehyun up for good. "I mean it. Don't let me die without getting to love you."

Jaehyun can't hold back the tide mounting against his teeth and he is eroding away as he watches Sangyeon’s struggle to remain lucid long enough to hear his words echo back as a promise. 

As much as Jaehyun wants to give Sangyeon everything he wants, promising something like this is too much if it must end with the weakening of Sangyeon’s gaze as he waits to hear the words come back to him as a vow. 

#####  ⠀⠀°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠑⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

Jaehyun's chest burns as his breaths tear their way out of his lungs but even after all his running he needs to think clearly and fix things. Each moment scouring its way through him must be endured just for the sake of maybe, just maybe, being able to fix everything. 

Jaehyun wonders if perhaps his insides are spilling out with each breath, each trudging step which takes him further from the airfield and towards the airport terminal. He'd be happy to break into the light of twenty-four hour convenience and find himself drenched in his own impending oblivion. But he knows he won't because he hasn't been touched save for the tremors of Sangyeon’s final breaths. 

The blood on Jaehyun's shirt isn't his own, no matter how he wishes it was, and Jaehyun hopes that when he eventually reaches the winding down of a bustling airport terminal filled with people they won't spare him the attention to realise it themselves. They are already miserable from cancelled flights leaving them stranded to spend the first hours of the new year uncomfortable so that amount of selfish disappointment is the best disguise Jaehyun can hope for. 

It wasn't so long ago that Jaehyun would have considered missed plans to be the end of the world, but now he has seen the world end and he can't quite work out why anything else mattered until that point. 

One step. Two steps. 

Jaehyun's legs are so close to giving up. Jaehyun wants to give up but he can't just yet. He inhales as deep as he can, feels the frigid air prick at him and scrape at his insides. He takes another step. He feels Sangyeon’s ghost in his arms, growing heavier by the second as his entire body goes lax. He feels Sangyeon’s hand, tacky and hot, reaching out and just barely finding Jaehyun's jaw. He feels Sangyeon’s last breath against his ear, a whisper of a name, of Jaehyun’s own name, and it means everything. He feels the life draining from Sangyeon as he lies across Jaehyun's lap. 

Sangyeon is alone. Cold on the airfield. He'll be stiff with rigor and encased in the crystals of the freezing dawn by the time he is found. Jaehyun shouldn't have left him alone, he knows he should have stayed with Sangyeon, but holding onto him until his soul passed over would be pointless. Jaehyun can prevent this all from happening in the first place. 

Jaehyun can go back and make Sangyeon live. Jaehyun can save the man he loves and return to a better version of this day when they have stayed at home, argued over a burnt dinner, and kissed at midnight. 

One step. Jaehyun stops. 

Jaehyun might not be able to do this. He looks at the smattering of planes still at the terminal as the cabin crew help to close up the planes ready for the hangar. The concrete of the taxiway is solid, a reminder that he can feel something as simple as where he stands. The terminal stretches into the pitch dark sky, immense and imposing even with the warm illumination from all the lights inside and out, and the planes roost under its protection, one glinting as it trundles into the hangar by the lead of the glowing red beacons of traffic control. 

Even so close to sleep the world ahead of Jaehyun is so awake. Jaehyun turns, wondering if he'd even be able to spot Sangyeon alone in the cold from this distance. Any potential for seeing so far is impeded by the cold smile of a man whose face lights up, pale and cruel, in the shadings of the early hours. 

Jaehyun lunges for the man, manages to latch onto his neck but can barely connect any of the punches he attempts. He's not coordinated like this and he ends up curling over at the impacts of a knee at his stomach and a fist at his temple. 

The lights above disorient the scarce sense Jaehyun thinks he has as Longguo looms above him, pulls him from the ground by his collar. 

"Does it hurt?" The question is smooth, sardonic, but no matter how much Jaehyun wants Longguo to die his arms can't do anything to achieve that. Jaehyun takes another blow to the face. Longguo winds up for another hit with his next words. "This is how I have felt since the day we met. Agony isn't it? Should I end it for you and send you off to be with your husband?" 

Jaehyun can feel heat in his mouth, his teeth ache and his face is numb with the shadows of punches that aimed to soften his bones. This is nothing compared to what Sangyeon went through, yet Jaehyun would still like it to end. 

"If you can do something like that over something so petty you should get on with it."

Longguo drops Jaehyun to the ground. "That wouldn't be fair. Even though I killed him it hasn't ended my pain. I'm still hurting. You should try it too."

Jaehyun stares at the sky behind Longguo's head, the terminal lights diffusing the darkness into the blur of a starless night. This is already too much. He'd like it to end right away. 

"Why won't you just kill me too? He loves me. Maybe if you kill me now you can go back and be the one to meet him first."

"You're funny," Longguo notes. "This must be why he fell for you. Just because I couldn't beat your scores at the academy, it doesn't mean I am a complete idiot. If I kill you now it would be because Sangyeon loved you and it would fix the timeline so I'd never meet him before you. And I was never that bothered about him anyway. It is more about what he represents."

"He's everything," Jaehyun spits at the lie. Against all sense Jaehyun remembers the enamoured look in Longguo's eyes at that new years party three years ago. Jaehyun had taken private pleasure in seeing Longguo's countenance shatter to despair when he interrupted to steal Sangyeon away. At least for a very short while, Longguo had loved Sangyeon. But knowing the truth doesn't quench the dry of his throat, nor does it extinguish the burning of his eyes as the sky refracts in the eternity before he blinks. "But Sangyeon isn't just everything to me. He is so much to more people than you can imagine. He is a person too. He has so much that he wants to do and so much that he can do and you've ruined it all over something stupid."

"Go and cry about it," Longguo shrugs. "Just because it is stupid to you it doesn't mean it is stupid to everyone. Maybe you should take some time to reflect on how to be more compassionate."

Longguo gets up, kicks Jaehyun's side roughly. 

"Happy new year."

Jaehyun listens out for the receding footsteps that dribble into the roar of generators at the airport. He lies still. He doesn't think he can do this. Every breath he takes is another that is snatched away from Sangyeon. Every breath he takes is another leading to the next one without Sangyeon. It wouldn't even matter if Sangyeon was alive to hate Jaehyun, because at least he'd be somewhere and he wouldn't have had everything snatched away from him by something like Jaehyun's carelessness or Jaehyun's pride. 

Everything is Jaehyun's fault. But even as hopeless as the realisation is, Jaehyun needs to fix it. He needs to save Sangyeon. 

Breathing is a desperate thing but Jaehyun climbs to his feet, crosses his arms over his chest to hold himself together against the searing of survival. 

Just before Jaehyun manages to reach the airport terminal, his phone buzzes in his pocket. It is almost one o'clock and Jaehyun has a missed call from Sangyeon. Jaehyun stops, stomach swooping for a step he hasn't taken, and he looks around just in case. But no such luck. It is stupid to hope for miracles, Jaehyun knows that well enough, but he would give anything for just that one miracle. 

Jaehyun hisses back the welling grief. He needs to put it off for at least a moment. He dials for his voicemail and patiently listens for the message. There is something joyous about Sangyeon’s voice in the message whilst warning Jaehyun to stay away. His breaths come out in puffs and a chill in the air splashes at Jaehyun as he realises that Sangyeon is running. 

There is nothing more that Jaehyun wants than to destroy Longguo, to take everything away from him just as he did to Sangyeon, but one of Sangyeon’s breaths bursts into rapture, a laugh where he should have conserved his breathing, and he is telling Jaehyun to find Vivi. And then he says that he loves Jaehyun and nothing about this is fair. 

Sangyeon’s message shouldn't sound that happy, not when being chased by the person who would kill him. For everything that Sangyeon is, Jaehyun can't bear hearing the odd elation of his mood when he should have been afraid. How is Jaehyun supposed to think of anything beyond the smile in Sangyeon’s voice when he left a message like he was certain so much more was to come. 

Jaehyun has to fix it. 

Jaehyun needs to find Vivi, because that might be a start. She shouldn't be here when Jaehyun has only heard that she was under the supervision of Haseul in her laboratory. Vivi isn't from this time and the institute likely wouldn't want her influencing a time she couldn't exist in, even if the changes are only small. 

Walking through the terminal, Jaehyun wonders just how strong human ignorance is. He is drenched in blood, a smear of filth amongst the gleaming white of the terminal. Even the person buffing the long white corridor doesn't spare Jaehyun a single glance. Knowing the desperate lengths people will go to just to find out information which doesn't concern them just makes Jaehyun angry. He is saturated in his own grief yet there isn't a single moment of concern from anyone. 

Jaehyun supposes he is being a hypocrite. What does he care for the problems of people around him? Their existence is incidental and carries no significance to him. Even the most monumental actions in their lives would have no influence on Jaehyun's. The same goes for him. He can't do anything to affect so many strangers when his focus is Sangyeon. 

Jaehyun is just as insignificant, even if he is standing right at the end of the world. 

Even if Jaehyun is insignificant, he doesn't want Sangyeon’s insides to dry and flake away from his skin. He goes to the 7/11. He buys soap and a flannel but it doesn't make up the total Jaehyun wants. As much as he needs to step back an hour or so, Jaehyun realises that there isn't any urgency in the choice. He could spend five minutes here, staring at the shelves of pharmaceuticals without an answer, or he could spend an hour, a day, a week. Jaehyun could live out a lifetime of knowing what it is like to miss the person all his thoughts of future revolved around before finally going to the counter to return to the hours before Sangyeon died. 

There is too much freedom in time travel. As much as Jaehyun needs to go back to fix things, he can't focus. He isn't even halfway to making up the transaction total that would take him to where he needs to be but none of the numbers fit. He wishes this was easy, that he had already made a number up to 9809 with the things in his hands (with soap and a flannel to wash away the reminder that Sangyeon won't come back unless the timeline is changed) but he doubts he would even be able to remember if he had. 

In theory Jaehyun could stay here forever, but the problem is that in practice he would be too lonely. He'd want to stay in the 7/11 for a hundred years of static time if Sangyeon was beside him. But the reality is stark and empty. He plucks some random boxes of cheap painkillers from the shelves, puts a couple back when he remembers there are limits to buying things like this. He reaches for a few more boxes without thinking too hard about anything aside from the numbers, but the sound of a box skittering across the floor jolts Jaehyun. 

He needs to leave. 

Jaehyun pays, isn't entirely sure how he makes the total what he intended, and he leaves the 7/11. Jaehyun heads up to the fourth floor, but he isn't entirely sure of when he'd expect Vivi to appear. Jaehyun isn't even certain of the time he has tripped back into seeing as the time on his phone is continuing to drag itself into the new year. He leaves his phone in his pocket and tries to make himself look somewhat presentable in the toilets. 

The fluorescent lights in the toilets are too much but there isn't anyone to scrutinise Jaehyun too closely as he lathers the soap into suds and scrubs at his arms and his face. The water runs down the drain, punch pink, but sloughing away layers of the decaying red doesn't make Jaehyun look any better. His eyes burn and his skin stings raw from the abrasion, but there is still more and more blood. 

Jaehyun is insignificant. So is his pain, yet it is the only thing he feels as his body fails to metabolise it into sharp anger. For a moment he is jealous of more calculating minds but he isn't certain even they would be able to find an answer at a time like this. Longguo is sly, too watchful and cautious to be entirely genuine, but even he sounded like a mess in the moment after piercing Sangyeon’s stomach (and wherever else the infinite fragments of nothingness tore through him). 

Jaehyun leaves the toilets. He can't watch himself struggle harder and harder to keep a straight face. He needs to at least see the person who should be suffering instead. 

Jaehyun can't move beyond the entrance to the toilets. The walkway leading back out to the food court on the fourth floor of the airport terminal isn't designed for people to block the path, however Jaehyun can't move. As desperately as Jaehyun wants to run to Sangyeon, moving is but a dream for the future and a memory from the past. 

Sangyeon is sitting at a table with Longguo. This isn't what Jaehyun had imagined when Sangyeon said he wouldn't be able to come home on time, but at least the tiny part of Jaehyun’s brain which suspects Sangyeon might tell a lie on their anniversary is quelled by the irritation plain in his face. 

Whatever Longguo is saying is annoying Sangyeon. Perhaps this is it. Coming to the airport is clearly a pointless trip if Sangyeon is only here to listen to reflexive stupidity. 

Jaehyun wonders how glad he can be about Sangyeon seeing him as he stands from the table. The expression on Sangyeon’s face freezes and he is suspended in a moment just the same as Jaehyun. The world ticks over to the next second, an infinitesimal degree of rotation that lurches rigor right out of the stasis of a blink. And then Sangyeon is shouting at Longguo. 

Jaehyun isn't exactly sure why he can't move when everything else is back to normal, but Jaehyun is rooted to the ground, petrified simply to watch the small scuffle as Sangyeon punches Longguo Square in the mouth. It is the least he deserves, and Jaehyun hopes the ache loosens Longguo's teeth from his jaw. Jaehyun can hate him even without blood spilling. 

"Sangyeon!" 

A small voice threads through the moment. From nowhere at all, someone small and lithe runs towards Sangyeon. Vivi really is here, but Jaehyun can't work out how. Her face is determined whilst Sangyeon looks relieved, not as surprised as he should do. Jaehyun could ponder the theories of deja vu and expecting an event that shouldn't happen, but it wouldn't do much good. Just because Sangyeon is living and breathing now it doesn't guarantee a moment where he might evade Longguo and breathe for a lifetime afterwards. 

How could anything be guaranteed when, as impossibly as Vivi, another Longguo materialises mid-lunge and tackles Vivi to the ground. Jaehyun still can't move, but he isn't the one being restrained by two copies of a person who shouldn't be here. Jaehyun hadn't seen the other Longguo appear between heartbeats to dampen Sangyeon’s struggle to get to Vivi. 

"Jaehyun, get Vivi!" Sangyeon shouts. Jaehyun wants to know what the point would be. But Sangyeon had been sure enough that helping Vivi was important that he had called and left Jaehyun a message requesting it. Jaehyun feels the limit to his hopelessness expand as he opens his eyes from a blink to see a third Longguo dragging Sangyeon away from the food court.

"Jaehyun, help her!" 

The Longguo pinning Vivi to the ground slashes at her with a wide arc. 

Jaehyun stumbles out of stasis and tries to build up momentum from the moment to move. Chances of reaching Sangyeon are fading but he could still catch up and try to do something. Jaehyun isn't armed though. Jaehyun could catch up and just see Sangyeon die at a different time in a different way. Hope lies in Vivi even after she has been attacked. 

Jaehyun runs, wonders just how much damage a biological weapon can inflict upon a synthetic person. He manages to knock a stock still Longguo off Vivi, though he isn't quite brave enough not to immediately retreat. 

Vivi's face looks more like she has rolled her ankle rather than been sliced open, but the gash across her chest is clean, sharp, dry around the fragment of the blade embedded in the wound. Jaehyun thinks he should be glad for the absence of blood, he's seen enough of it, but his own chest aches at the naked circuitry exposed by the slash beneath her clavicle. 

"Vivi," Jaehyun says. Her name is too heavy in Jaehyun's mouth. The first name he had said since losing Sangyeon in his arms. Vivi touches the tear in her skin and winces at the gaping ridge parting her skin. She's never been hurt before. 

Vivi's eyes meet Jaehyun's and he sees a wavering. Her expression is grim before she smashes her fist into her shoulder. Jaehyun stares at the space where Vivi was for just too long before he remembers Longguo who is rolling to sit up.

Measured calm is all across Longguo's face as he lifts his gaze from Vivi's disappearance to meet Jaehyun's eyes. And then he smiles. "She won't win, you know."

Jaehyun has known Longguo for a handful of years and they didn't need to be friends for Jaehyun to know how close they were in age. This Longguo has seen today too many times. A person's body won't cease aging just because they refuse to step out of any particular loop. This Longguo has lived this moment and many like it dozens of times over, though this must have been the first time he got so close to Vivi. This is the first time he has seen over the years of chasing after her that she isn't a human they way the rest of them are. 

"You didn't know she wasn't a human," Jaehyun says. Longguo's silence says enough. Scoffing about it won't deceive anyone. "The difference between her and you is that she can live forever. She'll get to see the end of the world infinite times. But eventually you're going to die and you won't be able to stop her."

Longguo rolls his eyes and looks away from Jaehyun and twirls his lace blade in his hands. Instead of a retort, Longguo smacks his left shoulder. 

Alone, Jaehyun takes a moment to think. Even if Sangyeon has been dying for years at the hands of Longguo, Jaehyun needs to try to keep him away from the airport. There isn't anything he can do about how easily he was drawn to the airport by the taunting of a man who has almost nothing, but if there is a moment where he can divert Sangyeon, he needs to force that change. 

Jaehyun goes to the 7/11, the only constant he has. Two canned coffees and a roll of mints. That is enough for Jaehyun to reach his total of 9809 and then he is rushing from the airport terminal. He runs down the escalators and weaves between the ambling pace of people obstructing his path. There is already an alert on his phone from a ride-hailing app but Jaehyun wants to think of nothing aside from the convenience as he runs to find his car among all the taxis queueing at the rank in the fading bright of late afternoon. The convenience of already having a car just makes the journey to Sangyeon too long. 

Impatience vibrates through Jaehyun's bones and he knows he isn't capable of masking just how crushing the visit will be. He's too useless to cooperate in conversation and he'd feel sorry for the driver (who is kind enough not to mention the state of Jaehyun’s clothes beyond a wary warning not to stain the seats) if not for the fact that Sangyeon’s life hinges on averting a crisis from this point. The rush hour traffic crawls on and Jaehyun gives up on his destination. He asks the driver to let him out of the car a few streets away from the hotel, and he runs. 

Inside the hotel isn't so easy to navigate so Jaehyun considers a change in his luck when Sangyeon enters the lobby with a carton of key cards that he is shuffling his way through. When Sangyeon notices Jaehyun, horror flickers over his face and he leaves the key cards on the counter in favour of taking Jaehyun somewhere they wouldn't be disturbed. 

Sangyeon’s hand is firm around Jaehyun's and the contact as Sangyeon leads the way feels like a rebirth in a moment. The tiled floor of the employee corridor is warped with puddles reflecting the diffusing light overhead, but there is more to Jaehyun's uneven footing. 

This Sangyeon knows nothing. This Sangyeon is beautiful, concern welling in his face as he asks for an explanation. But Jaehyun can't explain why he is so desperately covered in blood, he can't explain when he has arrived here from. He won't do it. Jaehyun can't imagine that even by changing the timeline he could make this shirt white again, but he isn't going to say any of that to Sangyeon when everything depends on Sangyeon never knowing what his fate might lead to. 

Jaehyun shakes his head, shakes off the necessity to answer with the truth Sangyeon wants to hear. He can only hold Sangyeon to a promise. 

"Please just stay at work tonight."

Sangyeon agrees, curiosity drawing his expression like he is memorising every line and mark on Jaehyun's face, like any of this is worth remembering. 

"Is it bad that even though you're not my Jaehyun I still want to kiss you?" Sangyeon asks. 

Jaehyun can't help the laugh which puffs out of his mouth at that. He is always Sangyeon’s Jaehyun no matter which point of their lives they are at. But Jaehyun might just be wrong about that. When they kiss Jaehyun is scared. He loves Sangyeon but he is also about to lose him. He can't breathe and he can't move on from this moment when he knows he might never see Sangyeon again. 

Even though the promise Sangyeon makes is sturdy with conviction, even though he holds Jaehyun tightly enough to make no mistake about how real he is, Jaehyun feels like he is losing. 

Jaehyun leaves the hotel but all he can think about is how Sangyeon had already apologised for not being able to leave work to spend the new year together. Jaehyun had taken the call a few hours before, long enough to have been a lifetime ago, but Sangyeon had already broken the promise.

⠀⠀

Home is empty without Sangyeon. By now Jaehyun has seen the dawn break over a new year and dread has spilled out of him with more volume than Jaehyun had thought possible. He can't breathe whilst the air has thinned out to make way for the realisation that Sangyeon isn't going to trudge home and collapse on the edge of the bed dramatically. 

Sangyeon would always be considerate about his dramatics, tending to be just heavy-footed enough to gradually irritate Jaehyun into waking up rather than rudely jolting him awake by slamming the doors and stomping around. Most nights when Jaehyun was allowed to expect Sangyeon home before morning he would try to stay up. He fell asleep almost every time, but the few times he'd managed to stay awake to greet Sangyeon had been worth it. He was immediately available for Sangyeon to vent to and it always felt like doing something special. 

Jaehyun had wondered a lot about how things were different when he was away on assignments. He called Sangyeon almost every day but the timing never quite matched up if the calls connected at all. Text messages were easier to manage because even if they arrived out of sequence it was nice to read streaming rants sprinkled with "I love you"s. But it is useless to send texts now. 

Jaehyun can't sleep, and he stirs out of naps with the expectation that Sangyeon will turn up. He doesn't, and Jaehyun is left with the realisation that any space is too vast when it is meant to be shared. 

The bed stretches too far beyond Jaehyun's limbs, his ruined clothes fall short of the laundry basket when he tries to toss them inside, his stomach swoops when the ground doesn't meet his footsteps when he expects, he must stretch his hands further to reach for things that were well within reach the day before. 

This loneliness churns itself up into violent waves which batter away the limits of the flat and Jaehyun is stranded in the middle of it all. Jaehyun waits for that hand to reach out to him, for Sangyeon to pull him out, though he knows how futile it is to wait. If telling Sangyeon to stay at work, to stay safe, had made a difference to the outcome, Jaehyun wouldn't have had to see Sangyeon die. 

There isn't a point in learning about the intricacies of time without being able to change it. 

Jaehyun goes back to the airport. 

This is a different day, in different clothes, in a different year, yet nothing much has changed. The most important thing is the absence of Sangyeon, though he doesn't yet feel like he might have successfully changed anything further along in his timeline. 

Truthfully, Jaehyun has never changed anything in a timeline he could observe. Doing so is prohibited by the Hemsut Agency. Training for three years and being employed by the agency are all bound by a code of conduct and Jaehyun hasn't ever heard of anyone so unscrupulous as to break these rules. They exist to be the guardians of time, plucking out the events and intruders which disrupt the balance of the earth's flow. There are certain departments tasked with swaying the progression of events, and Jaehyun learnt briefly of their duties whilst researching departments he would interview with. 

Jaehyun ended up in the department seeking out the traces of unregulated travel. It is an easy enough thing to avoid with portal devices like the ones Jaehyun had seen Longguo and Vivi use, but Haseul's team in the research department were slowly looking into artefacts in order to objectively measure the residual energy they leave behind so they too could be monitored. But the completion of even the most rudimentary scale looks to be a long way off. All Jaehyun has done is test known portals, the static ones that airports are built around, and take the trespassers in time to the criminal investigation teams at Hemsut. 

Jaehyun isn't so stupid as the think he will be able to avoid his own department forever, but the airport is all he has, so that is where he needs to go to at least attempt to shift the timeline away from the pattern it is currently tacked onto. 

Jaehyun's routine is the same. He goes to the 7-eleven, makes a purchase to his chosen value. He leaves the 7-eleven, walks around the terminal, and then he returns to the convenience store once more. 

Sangyeon is standing at the counter, but Jaehyun avoids his gaze for a moment. To appear incidentally casual, Jaehyun choses some items that could make up to a number like 9809 and then heads to the counter. 

"I can't even remember how long it has been since I last saw you," Sangyeon says. 

Jaehyun hesitates. He thought he had only come back a few years but he might have come back further. He tries to retrace the route taken in his head but it should have taken him to a neutral moment with nothing fixed to it. 

Jaehyun had assumed the hardest part would be coming up with a believable reason to have stepped here as a detour from a longer trip. Instead his mistake had occurred before he had realised it. 

"Don't we live together yet?" 

Sangyeon smiles like he knows something that Jaehyun doesn't. "I meant this you. The one from the future. I was hoping to hear about what happens in future. We do live together. It's very new. I might have to break up with you if you don't stop sending pictures of my ugly sleeping face to your friends."

It is light, easy, Sangyeon seems to be unable to make things difficult for Jaehyun. Aside from the fact that Jaehyun can't help but wonder whether he'd really be able to bring Sangyeon back into his timeline, there isn't anything too difficult when faced with Sangyeon behind the counter. 

Even when talking about breaking up, Sangyeon is smiling about the impossibility of it whilst acting like he is certain Jaehyun is to blame. He says it like a joke, so absurd that it couldn't be reflected in any real life events for them. It is just like normal, just like the days Sangyeon had pretended he had to break some serious news to Jaehyun and had ended up laughing right as Jaehyun started to believe something was actually wrong. 

Jaehyun had found some of Sangyeon’s jokes too annoying, but it wasn't anything impossible to put up with. He'd take getting mad at Sangyeon about pretending to dump him a hundred times over. He can see now that it was funny all along. Hilarious, even, when Sangyeon reaches for Jaehyun's hand. 

Jaehyun could cry. Sangyeon doesn't let him. 

"Where are you going after this? Or 'when'?" Sangyeon asks. It sounds like the set up for another joke and Jaehyun wants nothing more than to play along. But even if he does play along he might end up giving himself away. He tells a lie and hopes that is the sort of untruth which is rewarded with a smile and a happily ever after. Sangyeon doesn't look like he quite believes the lie. He probably knows Jaehyun too well, even if he is a few years short of knowing Jaehyun as well as Jaehyun knows Sangyeon. 

Sangyeon sighs, not entirely happy with Jaehyun's response, though Jaehyun wants nothing more than for it to become the truth. He wants to go home to Sangyeon. He won't go back until he is certain he will see Sangyeon there. 

Sangyeon wears a wry smile as he scans Jaehyun's purchases, a phone charger and a packet of pocket tissues. He puts them into a carrier bag and asks, "What does it mean?" 

Jaehyun isn't sure. He thinks Sangyeon has asked him about the number before. 

Maybe Jaehyun could tell Sangyeon the truth, that the number doesn't mean anything much. The number is just something that Jaehyun happened upon by chance, a memento from a first date, four digits that became a charm the more Jaehyun tried to remember it. 

Or Jaehyun could lie and hope that nobody realises that making small things important gives them too much power. This number has too much power already. It is almost an obsession but Jaehyun can't admit it is as much of a weakness as this. 

"It doesn't mean anything. Why do you ask?" 

Sangyeon hums, looks like he is hiding how annoyed he is about not getting an answer. He nods, fiddles with the lollipop display and twists the wrapper loose on one of the sweets. 

"You have too many secrets."

"I'm sure you have plenty of secrets that I don't know anything about."

Sangyeon hums and nods his head, false mystique. And then he beckons Jaehyun closer and cups his hand around his mouth like he is about to tell a secret. And then he says, "I love you."

Jaehyun laughs, couldn't stop smiling if he wanted to. 

"I love you too, idiot."

Pretending not to be standing at the edge of the world is easy if Jaehyun lies hard enough to himself. He's just on a little visit for the sake of it. He has been on his detour for long enough and it is time to go back to his reality. He leaves the 7-eleven and this Sangyeon behind.

Jaehyun thinks he is far away enough from the 7-eleven that he won't give himself away. Far enough in time, far enough in distance away from Sangyeon that he wouldn't see Jaehyun a thread away from falling apart. 

A gust of wind could do it, a careful breath to blow an eyelash free could disperse what little chance Jaehyun has of composure. He sinks into a crouch at the wall beside a book shop. A moment from being blown away, a hand squeezes Jaehyun's shoulder. For a moment he thinks he might be capable of staying whole. 

#####  °⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠑⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

Jaehyun looks down into the soup Vivi bought for him. The cup warms the palms of Jaehyun’s hands but he thinks maybe she has a better heart than he does. He looks across the table and Vivi smiles at him, a glimmer of kindness through the aroma of the steam steadily rising. 

"You don't have to drink it. Haseul says that giving a sad person a warm drink is good for comfort. Like a hug from the right person," Vivi says. She rests her chin on her hands and scrunches her eyes. 

Jaehyun blinks slowly. His eyes are heavy and the soup Vivi bought is comforting enough that, just for a little while, Jaehyun thinks he might be able to sleep. He could dream a million lifetimes with Sangyeon, or he might dream of nothing at all. Sleeping isn't exactly conducive to changing the timeline and saving Sangyeon. 

Jaehyun inhales deeply. Vivi is still smiling. Even this could be a dream. He can't work out when he is, nor where this fits into any of the timelines he has encountered. 

"When are you from?" Jaehyun asks. 

Vivi looks thoughtful, almost insincere as she delays her reply. "I'm from the end of the world."

Jaehyun sighs. "The you sitting here with me now, Vivi, when are you from? Have you been stabbed yet?" 

Vivi's smile is carefully static. And then she nods. She raises her finger to her lips as though she needs to suggest Jaehyun keeps the truth quiet. Slowly, Vivi pulls aside the neckline of her jumper to reveal clumsy blue stitches holding her wound shut. She allows Jaehyun to look for a moment before readjusting the way her jumper sits across her shoulders. 

"It didn't hurt a lot. It is just a bit shocking when you realise that someone hurt you. It even made me feel angry even though it was meant to happen."

"It was meant to happen? How did you mean to get stabbed?" Jaehyun asks. He wouldn't be able to sleep now. He wants to ask Vivi what on earth she means by that. Nobody would intend to get stabbed by a lace blade, especially not someone from a time when the weapon is more than absurd fantasy. Jaehyun wants to ask whether she thinks Sangyeon’s fate is something to take lightly, but he can't say anything with his teeth gritted so hard together. 

"Sometimes things are scary but you have to do them. Useful things can be like that. I wondered why I had to do it at first. Why should I keep trying to shift one loop of time when it won't make much difference? But I still did it. I made sure to keep reappearing at the right moment to distract the man who is trapped just because one day he might try to kill me."

Jaehyun stays quiet. His grip around his cup of soup redoubles and Vivi's words follow the lead of a single sigh. 

"He wouldn't try to kill me if I wasn't going to save Sangyeon, but the reason I will save Sangyeon is that Longguo tried to kill me."

Jaehyun doesn't understand but he thinks he doesn't really have to. Time is a prophecy which fulfils itself, but Jaehyun doesn't want to believe that so many fixed events are clustered around a moment like Sangyeon dying. All the events Jaehyun is seeing must be flexible enough to give him the hope to continue, otherwise there isn't a point in becoming the time traveller Sangyeon told him he would become. 

There is too much around for Jaehyun to know how real the possibility of change is, but nothing is clear enough for Jaehyun to give up and assume the worst from the memories which won't erode from his mind. 

"Will you really change it?" 

Vivi nods, bangs her hands on the table hard enough to make ripples in Jaehyun's soup. "It has taken me a while but I have almost done it! I thought it was strange that Sangyeon would find me in the first place, even after Sooyoung told me about it, but I had to go back to an early enough time that Haseul and her team could reverse engineer technologies successfully. Like the portals. I have two, but somehow Longguo gets at least two too. I am not sure how though. But it probably doesn't matter. Longguo needs one so that he tries to kill me, so that I can take a piece of the weapon, so that Haseul can work out how to counteract it."

"Is that even possible? A lace blade punctures almost every part of a person. How can you stop that, or even reverse it?" 

Vivi sucks her teeth and regards Jaehyun with a look he wouldn't like to define. "Do you know how smart Haseul is?" 

"Yes? Sooyoung won't stop talking about how Haseul is smarter than Einstein."

"Haseul is smarter than anyone I have met, in this time and where I come from. And I had to go back, early enough that I could give Haseul the portals. She has made her own, only it is different. She actually had to wait for Longguo to get the lace blade and use it on me. And then I had to take it back to her. So she has spent a few years slicing watermelons with the lace blade to see how it works."

Jaehyun is used to hearing endless praise for Haseul. She does deserve it because she has helped to develop a lot of the systems Hemsut uses across the different departments. The teams beneath Haseul are handpicked from students at the academy who show the most understanding of time theories and they are encouraged to create their own time models when she is gauging just how well they will do in the technologies departments. 

But even Haseul can't make the impossible happen. She can bring big dreams closer and bend the rules of the improbable, but she can't go beyond the limitations of time on the earth. Being smart isn't always enough when human weakness exists. 

"Has she made another lace blade?" 

"Of course she had to," Vivi says. "She had to test out the prototypes and models to see if they could work when replicated. I think it has something to do with particles. I can't remember. Haseul says a lot of things which don't make sense to me."

It doesn't make sense to Jaehyun either. 

"Why would she do that? She needs to get rid of them. Haseul shouldn't be messing around with things like that. Not when that weapon is what killed Sangyeon."

Vivi looks at Jaehyun, incomprehension settling into the features of her face. Despite not being a human, Vivi has displayed sensitivity to emotion and has her own feelings too. But she is still the product of artifice. She wasn't made in the same way as humans are. There is still a disconnect in what she can understand.

"What Haseul is doing is wrong. Why is she recreating weapons which nobody has a chance to survive?" Vivi doesn't react to Jaehyun's question. He can't stay here. 

There must be a time where Jaehyun can work out precisely how to shift events. Perhaps he just needs to prevent Sangyeon from being able to come to the airport in the first place; Jaehyun could break Sangyeon’s car. But that is the sort of expense which wouldn't be appreciated in the ignorance of what has been avoided. There is an answer somewhere. Jaehyun just has to keep going to the 7-eleven and hoping he doesn't step into a loop he could get locked out of. 

Vivi sounds almost timid as she calls after Jaehyun. He keeps staring ahead until he reaches the bottom of the escalator. Jaehyun is about to step onto the escalator leading to the next floor down when Vivi catches up to him. Her grip is strong around Jaehyun's wrist and her face is naked irritation. 

"Don't go to the 7-eleven."

"Sangyeon was so sure about you, but you turned out like this."

"Sangyeon is so sure about you too," Vivi says. "There are better ways to go about whatever it is you want to do."

"What better way is there of killing Longguo than to go back to before he can do anything to Sangyeon?"

Vivi hesitates, rapidly blinks away a thought. "There's a better way than going to the 7-eleven." 

Vivi leads Jaehyun away from the escalators. Outside an empty shopfront, Vivi opens her small backpack. Inside there are two flat plates attached to a tangle of straps. 

"What's this?" Jaehyun asks though he suspects he already knows. These look like the portals from the end of the world. 

"You don't need to go back to the 7-eleven," Vivi says. 

Jaehyun is wary of attaching the portal to himself, but he should try it at least once. It could be the answer. Vivi straps the second portal to her shoulder and starts tracing digits on the blank surface. She holds onto Jaehyun's wrist and then slaps her shoulder. 

The ground isn't quite solid beneath Jaehyun's feet and he rolls his ankle in a dip in the grass, but there is less light than he expects. Vivi's grip on Jaehyun's arm is helpful only because she is so needlessly strong. Jaehyun is about to ask where they are when he hears the pathetic whining of something pathetically injured. 

"What's that noise?" Jaehyun whispers. In the shade of the night Jaehyun can see Vivi looking up at him but he would appreciate something other than her concern. 

"I'm sorry, Sangyeon, I'm sorry." 

The words are repeated like a mantra and Jaehyun's stomach roils. This isn't what Jaehyun asked for. He glares at Vivi and he realises just how easy it is for external forces to play with small lives. He isn't here to be played with. 

Jaehyun slaps Vivi's hands away and strides over to the quivering heap of a man in the grass. Jaehyun drags Longguo up from the ground and watches how tears roll down his cheeks. 

Longguo sucks in a trembling breath. When his eyes meet Jaehyun's he shakes his head. "No, I didn't mean to do it. I wouldn't hurt him, ever, I swear." 

Jaehyun squints at Longguo. He's dressed up, made an effort. Like Sangyeon said, he's from the new year party. Longguo was irritating, difficult to talk to, reclusive, and dour for the first year after Jaehyun met him. He wasn't winning any popularity contests at the Hemsut academy but there was a switch in his demeanour. No longer was he simply unsociable and he became intentionally cruel. 

Something made him change. Something made him dangerous. 

"What did you do?" Jaehyun asks. 

"I didn't. I love him. How could I?" 

It feels good to smack Longguo as hard as he can. Even though the man is snivelling and rambling nonsense, Jaehyun knows too well what he becomes. 

Jaehyun shoves Longguo over. He glances back at Vivi but she isn't about to stop him. She's on standby for a moment that won't matter. 

"You love him? A man you met six hours ago? Do you think he'd ever love you back?" 

Longguo doesn't answer, just drags himself backwards through the dew-damp grass. He isn't quick enough to evade the kick Jaehyun lands in his ribs. Longguo curls in on himself, winces against his own breaths as he splutters and coughs spittle onto the flexing blades of grass below. Vivi still doesn't move to stop Jaehyun. He wonders whether she is just observing a fixed event. 

Being accused of trying to kill a person is awful. The accusation would cause stress and doubt and unrest if it held water. But Longguo's words were those of a person who endeared himself to no one. Longguo wasn't viewed sympathetically and he wasn't someone who their classmates at the academy believed. Longguo was just trying to stir up trouble because he hated Jaehyun, because he was jealous, because he was pathetic. But Jaehyun realises that Longguo must have been telling the truth. Jaehyun could kill Longguo right now - he has the motivation to do it - but the Jaehyun of this time has an alibi and the support of people who couldn't imagine him as someone capable of killing. 

Jaehyun kicks Longguo again, relishes the dull sound of the impact being absorbed into flesh. Jaehyun could really do it, here on the airfield just like Longguo always said he had tried to. 

Jaehyun crouches beside Longguo, watches the limp writhing of him crawling away from his own anguish. If only Longguo could plant himself firmly in the ground and could move without slipping so easily. Jaehyun knocks Longguo's head, listens to him sob harder against the grass. 

"Hey, idiot," Jaehyun says "What happened to the other ones?" 

"They… They went."

Jaehyun sighs. That isn't a good enough response. Longguo keeps squirming away but he isn't getting very far, just snivelling and weeping against the ground. Jaehyun gets closer and pins Longguo down with his knees.

"How does it feel?" Jaehyun asks. "Do you have anyone you can trust in this world?" 

"They never told me that would happen," Longguo grunts. "I was supposed to have him. They never said that I would be the one to do it. They never said he'd get hurt."

"Get hurt?" 

Jaehyun drags Longguo up but the expression he sees is making him angry. More than before. This man has no right to feel sad over anything that happened to Sangyeon. This man is nothing. 

"I could kill you, right now. But would that be fair when you haven't suffered because of what you did? Maybe those other guys wanted you to suffer too, that's why they let you do it." 

"They tricked me," Longguo wails. "I love him."

Jaehyun drops Longguo to the ground. He can't do this. He can't listen to this man going through the motions of a heartbreak over something he caused himself. He gets up, breathes against the searing across his chest and approaches Vivi. He grasps her sleeve and she pats his arm gently.

"We should have come somewhere else," Jaehyun says. 

"I'm sorry, Jaehyun."

"No. I meant we should have found a lace blade or something before finding this loser." 

Vivi frowns up at Jaehyun but the confusion in her face is enough to give Jaehyun the time to step back from her. He considers the merits of killing someone with his bare hands, whether it would even be possible for him, but he isn't certain it is the right option.

It might not even be the right point to make a change. Jaehyun doesn't trust things not to take a different route to the same point. He doesn't trust Hesmut not to spite Jaehyun by finding another way to take Sangyeon away from him. 

Jaehyun doesn't trust how things have turned out. He doesn't trust the way Vivi has been placed at all the right moments to convince Jaehyun that she is on his side. He doesn't trust how she brought him here to see someone else anguished over Jaehyun's loss. He doesn't trust how Haseul has apparently been in possession of a lace blade for long enough that she has plotted their patterns of destruction precisely. 

Jaehyun needs to get away from this. He needs to live another lifetime with Sangyeon and wonder whether Sangyeon would hate him for unscrupulous methods to see him breathe again. 

Jaehyun wanders a few steps away from Vivi, listens out for any footfalls agitating the stasis of the night, and traces a number onto the blank surface of the portal strapped to his shoulder.

Slowly, Jaehyun faces Vivi. 

"Do you think Sangyeon would still love me if I put this person out of their misery?" 

Vivi hesitates, eyes reflecting the sparkles from the transmission tower across the airfield. "I wouldn't be able to answer that. The only certain way to know the answer would be to observe the results."

It is vague enough, neutral enough. Jaehyun nods. "You're right."

Jaehyun catches the momentary surprise on Vivi's face right as he hits the portal on his shoulder and the airfield, Vivi, and this night vanish. 

  
  


Jaehyun had never considered that he could lose so much, but he's been cycling around the same few years for long enough that the Hemsut might simply be taking pity on a poor fool even after he ditched Vivi. Jaehyun goes back to a point that might fix everything yet he is terrified to make an alteration which could divert Sangyeon to someone else altogether. He's an idiot and anyone who has caught onto just one of Jaehyun’s failures could see that. 

Returning to the proper point in life is breaking Jaehyun more and more. It isn't so bad that Sangyeon had even sided with Longguo a few times before being murdered because something about Jaehyun appeared suspicious or absurd, but even the times Sangyeon has always believed in Jaehyun have taken their toll. 

Perhaps the times Sangyeon has regarded Jaehyun with complete trust and called him over like they have any time to joke around are the worst. The surprise followed by rapid acceptance are both expressions Jaehyun won't ever be able to forget, not after all the times he has seen them when he closes his eyes. 

Remembering means it happened and that means things never changed. Remembering means that Sangyeon died in Jaehyun's arms and told him not to change the most important things - getting to meet, getting to fall in love. Remembering means that all the times he has tried to remove Longguo from the situation have failed. And Jaehyun feels like the world is mocking him for hesitating over every opportunity to get rid of Longguo for good. 

The only remaining solution is one which selfishness had him avoiding. But Jaehyun must swallow back the reflux of injustice. It is his fault and he must fix things even if it means never getting to live a life with Sangyeon in it. Breaking the promise is just small collateral. Eventually he'll forget everything about Sangyeon as the knowledge withers into false memories and daydreams and, if he's lucky, they'll never meet again. 

One thing that Jaehyun doesn't anticipate with executing his solution is not knowing how far back he is supposed to go to prevent himself meeting Sangyeon. The strange instances Sangyeon brought up were never accompanied by dates but all he knows is the latter end of 2019 is when Sangyeon started speaking with Jaehyun. 

Jaehyun goes to the airport 7-eleven and uses his phone's calculator to work out what he can buy to make up the number 9809. The prices of things have changed too much over the years for Jaehyun to keep buying the same things, but adding yellow-labelled foods close to expiry has usually helped him to reach the awkward number he chose on that first day at the academy. The person who serves Jaehyun is vaguely familiar but only in the sense that they must be wondering why Jaehyun has been into the shop so often over the past few days. 

Once Jaehyun has completed his transaction he leaves, does a circuit of the terminal and makes sure not to bump into any of the meandering travellers on his way. Upon his approach to the 7-eleven, Jaehyun can see Sangyeon through the window. 

Sangyeon looks bored and he is leaning heavily on the counter with his hand propping up his chin whilst he scrolls through his phone. Jaehyun wonders how Sangyeon lasted so long working at the 7-eleven if he was so blatant about not wanting to be there over two years before he even mentioned quitting. There's a moment when Jaehyun considers just walking away from all of this. He might not be able to change anything no matter how he tries. But that would mean leaving things as they are - Sangyeon one day dying because of Jaehyun’s incompetence. So he goes into the shop. And Sangyeon clocks Jaehyun instantly. The initial surprise at being caught slacking melts away into failed indifference. 

Jaehyun wishes he'd paid more attention, or that Sangyeon had included more details when relaying nonsense to him. This Sangyeon has met Jaehyun before and, no matter how cursory the interaction, it is basis enough for them to meet again. 

Sangyeon’s gaze is heavy, and Jaehyun wonders why today it feels especially so. Jaehyun ends up crouched in the pharmacy aisle. He reaches for some various painkillers but none of the brands are priced conveniently enough that he'd be able to buy something for the right price. 

None of the painkillers would be enough to shift Jaehyun's headache anyway. There are other aches too, but Jaehyun hadn't even bothered trying to convince himself that there was a pill to fix them. 

He's in the same room as a person he loves, a person he's going to love too much to want to lose, and he won't be able to leave without pretending that none of it is true. 

Jaehyun works out a way of making up his total but he isn't totally happy about it. He takes a deep breath, wonders whether the ache between his ribs is sharpening because of how deeply he is inhaling or because he knows what he must do to pass this place. 

He drops a box of nasal strips (cardboard crumpled and a cheery yellow label exclaiming the price reduction) on the counter and asks for a raspberry slush. 

Sangyeon manages precisely six seconds of pretending to be disinterested before he says, "Have you found that time portal yet?"

It is typical Sangyeon and Jaehyun can't expect luxuries like being able to pay and leave immediately. 

"Having a bad day?" Sangyeon asks. The question is almost cautious, like he thinks saying the wrong thing would collapse a carefully constructed interaction, like he thinks Jaehyun isn't at his mercy. 

That's something like it, but Jaehyun isn't certain how he'd categorise the constant torment of seeing resignation seeping out of Sangyeon’s mouth as he sags into Jaehyun's hold. But that isn't something he should bother sharing with Sangyeon. A Sangyeon who doesn't know. A Sangyeon who will never know. "I've been having a lot of those lately. Bad days."

"You need to take some time out for yourself," Sangyeon suggests. He caps the plastic cup ready to dispense the slush into. For a stranger he is comfortable enough to gesture at Jaehyun with the straw when he says, "I mean it, you should rest. Stay at home all day and order takeout. Visit some friends. Anything more relaxing than travelling all the time."

Jaehyun would laugh if that isn't what he would love to be doing in some other universe where he hadn't set his own hell into motion. But maybe there is a way around this. Sangyeon is the one suggesting Jaehyun take some time out for himself. Perhaps if Jaehyun takes Sangyeon’s hand now and is just persuasive enough he can remove Sangyeon from this timeline entirely and at least keep him alive before Hemsut seeks to put things right. But even if Jaehyun isn't early enough to head off a first meeting he doubts he's late enough that Sangyeon would agree to go along with anything he says. 

So he's stuck for now, watching moments of Sangyeon’s life interspersed with him asking Jaehyun to promise the impossible. 

"That's not possible." 

"You're going to work yourself to death if you carry on like this though."

"So be it."

Sangyeon sighs. It is too much like all the times Jaehyun has failed to change things and felt the labour of last breaths against his cheek. 

"Your total comes to ₩9809," Sangyeon says, too loud and brassy. He's made points like this dozens of times before, and he has even told Jaehyun that he adds something extra to his tone when dealing with particularly troublesome customers. Jaehyun could already imagine that he'd be one of those. 

The card reader accepts Jaehyun's card for the contactless payment and Sangyeon slides the bright blue slush across the counter. He still doesn't quite look content and Jaehyun still wishes he could take Sangyeon away from here. But the timing isn't right and he doesn't think he'll be lucky enough to find the moment Sangyeon would go with him. 

Leaving here feels like giving up, but giving up on knowing Sangyeon will work out for the best once he has undone all their encounters. "I think it is strange how you're here every time I am yet you have the nerve to tell me about working too much."

Sangyeon is taken aback but there's nothing on the right side of good customer service that he could say to that. Well, there's nothing appropriate that Sangyeon would likely reply with. He keeps his retort to himself and Jaehyun doesn't quite manage to stop himself from waving at Sangyeon as he leaves. 

The crystals in Jaehyun's slush effervesce on the back of his tongue and the sour sweet of sapphire sugar isn't so much satisfactory recompense as it is saccharine consolation. 

The nasal strips are useless because Jaehyun doesn't snore but he doesn't even have a Sangyeon of his own to blame for fictitious sleeplessness. 

After doing a loop of the concourse he finds a bench to sit and finish his drink. He leaves the nasal strips for some lucky joker who still has someone in their life who would laugh at a joke like this, and throws away the plastic cup with the dregs of blue syrup at the bottom. 

Jaehyun walks into the 7-eleven. He still isn't early enough. 

Sangyeon’s eyes linger on Jaehyun in a way which exposes him too much. Seeing familiarity in Sangyeon isn't fair. He's bored enough to even pay attention weeks before Jaehyun thought he would first have arrived, so stepping back one more day to engineer the machinations of misfortune wouldn't save a life here. 

Jaehyun avoids Sangyeon’s eyes as well as he can and picks up the sort of miscellaneous objects which must appear to be random excuses to approach the counter. The objects are just that, though Jaehyun is waiting for the failed transaction when Hemsut catch up to him and he must explain to Sangyeon why he no longer needs an assortment of items which breach the quantities of pocket change.

Jaehyun brings his items to the counter and awaits Sangyeon’s comment about the things he is soon to waste money on. 

Instead, Sangyeon scans the miniature shampoo bottle and says, "You come here a lot." 

Jaehyun can't quite work out why. He hasn't been here yet, and his patience for solving a conundrum with no answer. 

"Well, Sangyeon, some people need to travel a lot."

Sangyeon frowns but the expression flutters away to make way for the words Sangyeon is supposed to say. Even Sangyeon wishing Jaehyun luck on his travels sounds almost sincere, and Jaehyun just feels more annoyed for it as he leaves. 

Jaehyun is about to abandon his purchases on a bench when his eyes catch on the bag of tortilla chips he had picked up. He doesn't imagine he has been sabotaging himself by meeting Sangyeon earlier and earlier for no reason. But Jaehyun thinks he might have had a reason to go to the airport over five years ago for the usual sort of travel. 

Jaehyun takes his phone from his pocket and scrolls through his social media accounts to find a trip that isn't so distant when he is standing in a spot only a few months late. 

Twenty-two isn't a particularly special age, but Jaehyun had generous parents who agreed with his argument that twenty-one was too stressful of an age for him. Jaehyun got to take some friends on a celebratory holiday and they had smart ideas to pre-drink before even boarding the plane to Thailand. They had the even smarter idea to buy snacks from the 7-eleven too. 

Jaehyun only goes back as far as September, but he doesn't go inside the 7-eleven when he completes his circuit of the terminal. Even if Jaehyun couldn't see himself through the window of the convenience store he wouldn't be able to go in. Not when he can see the glum exhaustion on the face of the Sangyeon standing behind the counter, not when he sees how the expression is supplanted by polite neutrality, not when something the Jaehyun at the counter says is good enough to earn a laugh. It looks genuine, the humour on Sangyeon’s face, and the Jaehyun inside the 7-eleven with his friends is spurred on by the same thing. 

Jaehyun watches the sloppy version of himself from five years prior try to appeal to Sangyeon, and he feels something like hope crumble. Even if this moment is the result of serendipity Jaehyun isn't sure whether he could do anything to change things like chance and blind luck. Even if he is desperate he isn't sure that he wants to be able to change something this innocently incidental. He can't go back earlier than this. He can't lose a meeting even this stupidly unimportant. 

A tickle against Jaehyun's neck makes him jump but he only sees Vivi when he turns to see the cause. She smiles considering all that happened. 

"Why are you here?" 

"I was looking for you," Vivi says. She doesn't phrase it like searching for him was a bother. It is just a fact that she was looking and now she can stop. 

"Why were you looking for me?" Jaehyun asks. He's tired. He doesn't know if he can do this anymore. He's not sure how much use he would be for anything she has been sent here for. 

Vivi links her arm around Jaehyun's. She asks, "Why didn't you kill Longguo?" 

Jaehyun watches the version of himself inside the 7-eleven reach out for Sangyeon’s hand. He sighs. "I'm scared. It was bad enough having to hold Sangyeon in my arms in his last moments. What if I did kill Longguo, would I have to remember that? Would I have to live with something like that even if it made Sangyeon hate me? I don't know if he could accept me doing something like that."

Vivi pats Jaehyun's hand reassuringly. "That's alright. You don't need to worry about things like that."

Jaehyun is incredibly worried. 

"Did Hemsut send you here? I am not actually sure how the agency goes about rectifying the changes made by an agent. That sort of thing is classified. Would they send someone like you to neutralise me? Go back to before I was born and prevent me from being made in the first place?" 

Vivi laughs gently. She begins tracing digits on the portal strapped to her shoulder. Jaehyun doesn't have the motivation to try to run. He has seen the first time he met Sangyeon, he has seen the look Sangyeon gave to a tipsy idiot like Jaehyun on the first day of their forever. Jaehyun keeps his eyes on the past before it disappears. 

⠀⠀

Haseul doesn't look surprised when she opens the door of her office to find Jaehyun and Vivi sitting at her desk. Sooyoung, clinging to Haseul's shoulders as she follows, definitely looks surprised to see them. 

"What are you doing here?" 

"Sangyeon died," Jaehyun says. He isn't sure why he said it. The words leave a sour residue in his mouth and he hates the fact that he'd ever need to say them. 

Sooyoung looks apologetic but Haseul smiles and shuts the office door behind them. 

"Have you decided to stop struggling and try my idea?" 

"No?" Jaehyun glances at Vivi before looking back at Haseul as she perches on the edge of her desk. "I don't like the sound of your idea. Vivi has told me you have been messing around with things that you shouldn't."

"Who are you to decide things like that?" Sooyoung asks. Her arms are folded across her chest but she has no restraint in her mood as she approaches. "Haseul is a genius and she has worked out how to solve all of your problems. Stop being so ungrateful."

"Solve all my problems?" Jaehyun asks. "How many people are you hoping to kill by replicating weapons that shouldn't exist?"

"Who said anything about killing? I haven't plotted the trajectory of lace blade spirals to kill anyone," Haseul says. She walks away from her desk to a large cabinet. 

Jaehyun glares at Sooyoung and she pulls a face back at him but it turns into a radiant smile when Haseul is walking towards them once more. She places a small rectangular device on the desk. It looks just like the portals he and Vivi have been using. 

"What's that?" Jaehyun asks. 

"It's the thing that's going to save your husband," Sooyoung says, loudly, like she is racing someone else for the privilege of replying. 

"Right. And what is that?" 

Haseul nudges the device towards Jaehyun. "I believe you should have been there when Vivi got the fragment of a lace blade. For years I have been trying to work out how they work and how I could apply that to reversing the momentum." 

"Is it a cure?" Jaehyun asks. He supposes Vivi told things wrong. 

"Something like that," Haseul says. "This portal is only a prototype. I haven't had enough time to live to see how well it works, but I am confident that I have created something successful."

"You definitely did," Sooyoung says. "You haven't been living in your lab and wasting away our time together for this thing not to work."

Haseul smiles and shushes Sooyoung. "This portal can reverse time in carefully plotted spirals for a single person to revert them back to a moment before a fatal injury. And then it can pause time just for them."

Jaehyun doesn't quite understand. He looks at the device in Haseul's hands and doesn't see how it is capable of that much. He looks up at Haseul. 

"You don't have any proof that it works. Even if you haven't lived long enough to test it out, couldn't Sangyeon have come back to say hi and let you know that you were successful?" 

Haseul hesitates. "He wouldn't be able to travel through time. The portal needs to be paused. Any interference from other portals might cause the portal to malfunction. When it is paused, Sangyeon can stay alive, but if anything happens to the portal… He won't be alive anymore."

"So he's a moment away from death anyway," Jaehyun surmises. He might deserve Sooyoung clipping him around the ear but it still hurts all the same. This is a lot to process for someone who has desperately spent too long trying to work out how to save a dead man. But he doesn't have all the answers he needs just yet. "I'm a time traveller. Couldn't I have come back to let you know how your little experiment went?" 

Haseul doesn't say anything. Vivi's hand reaches for Jaehyun's just a moment before Sooyoung says, "Not if you get expelled from Hemsut."

Jaehyun has heard rumours of people who get expelled from Hemsut. It hasn't happened often enough for any details to be solidified in the consensus of the academy students and the agents, but the general idea is that someone who gets expelled has their memory wiped. There aren't any precise ways to remove memories without affecting too many other cognitions. A person expelled from Hemsut loses everything. 

The prickling at Jaehyun's eyes is hard to endure but he can't cry again, not when he's so unsure. He exhales, too shakily, and Vivi squeezes his hand tighter. Jaehyun could laugh. 

"Do you think I will get expelled right away? Don't they work on a three strikes and you're out policy?" 

"How many strikes do you think you're on now?" Sooyoung asks. She's probably right. Jaehyun has lost track of how many changes he has tried and failed. It somehow feels unfair to reach that realisation. 

"Do you think I will at least get to be with Sangyeon? We're married. I know it's not legal or anything, but there's our families too. Hemsut wouldn't mess with that many people's brains just to punish me, would they?" 

Sooyoung looks at Haseul instead of saying anything. Haseul is the one who has been here the longest, she's the smart one here. But Haseul looks as uncertain as the rest of them. "I'm sorry, Jaehyun, I can't answer that."

Jaehyun nods. He doesn't fully understand but it won't matter too much soon. He keeps his eyes on the portal Haseul has made. All his hopes lie in this device and there is no evidence to suggest it even works. But the result of not trying it out is already clear. 

Jaehyun takes the device from Haseul and turns it over in his hands. There is nothing of note about it. Jaehyun supposes he is impressed by how similar it looks to the genuine portals from the end of the world. There is a weight to it that Jaehyun can't feel in the portal that is strapped to his shoulder. He closes his fingers around the portal. 

"If Sangyeon’s body is frozen in time, he's not going to change, is he? He isn't going to age." 

Haseul nods slowly. "I wouldn't know how to make the portal take a diversion to follow a different timeline. This is the best I could do."

"You've done something amazing," Vivi reminds her. "You have made the impossible possible."

She has, but Jaehyun is scared. If he gets to keep Sangyeon in his life he wouldn't know how to explain away the differences between them as Jaehyun ages and Sangyeon remains the same. He wouldn't know how to live each day realising that time is running out whereas Sangyeon could live forever and would have to look at days without Jaehyun. It would be worse still if Jaehyun couldn't be there. Sangyeon would be alone in his immortality without the barest connection to the world which took away his ability to grow old with his peers. 

But it is a life. That's better than anything Jaehyun could offer. 

"So, I just need to pop this on Sangyeon. What is the interface like?" 

"No. Vivi will do that. I can't make you go back to Sangyeon as he is."

Jaehyun exhales, relieved, disappointed, resigned. He doesn't have a clue what lies ahead for him, but he is mostly glad that he doesn't need to go back to the airfield at the stroke of new year to see his nightmare all over again. 

For having a solution this easy, Jaehyun still feels awful. 

#####  ⠀°⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠚⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀°

Jaehyun remembers a lot about this day, the first day of 2020. He doesn't remember the day for anything of note but rather the lack thereof. He remembers how he woke up, head less sore than expected, and his spirits high with thoughts of the year ahead. He'd had a laugh the night before and then his gradual journey to remembering new year's eve left him more annoyed than happy. 

He'd met someone the night before. Sangyeon was strange, and Jaehyun had supposed a degree of the strangeness came from heavy inebriation, but it wasn't the sort of strangeness that couldn't be tolerated. Beyond all the over-familiarity there was a lot that Jaehyun had found interesting. 

Whatever Sangyeon was saying, he believed it. Words that sounded made up and farfetched were true to this person who kept asking Jaehyun about himself and insisted that Jaehyun was perfect with so many other good points additional to his face. And he was beautiful. 

The morning turned to afternoon and Jaehyun wondered a lot about how he was supposed to meet this man in better circumstances. They wouldn't be able to meet again. Jaehyun had no way to meet Sangyeon or get in contact with him. So he was stuck remembering this stupid, gorgeous, funny guy at various points over the next month until the guy called him. 

Jaehyun would never be able to forget the glee of hearing Sangyeon’s voice, sober, hesitant across the cloying signal of the phone. And he thinks that even if he can't save the person he loves most in the world, even if he can only manage to give him enough of a life to never know what it is like to be loved by him, Jaehyun needs to be able to keep the memory. Jaehyun is going to listen to Vivi and follow Haseul's plan, even though the oblivion of the unknown terrifies him. This could be the beginning of just another day or it could be an extension to the end of everything. Jaehyun has already been as close to the end of the world as he dares, but this is too close to him. But he needs this fragile hope of happiness because it is the only chance he has. 

The airport 7-eleven looks as familiar as ever. Jaehyun doesn't think he will be seeing much more of it in future, but he is trying not to think so much about the finality of coming here now. 

Jaehyun remembers the first time he came here, apprehensive because the situation had felt like a strange joke, but he had talked about visiting so much over the week since Sangyeon called that he had refused to back out of the idea. Coming to the 7-eleven was a fun second date regardless of Sangyeon’s refusal to agree (hopefully only with the fact it was their second date and not about how much fun it was). But five years after they met, Jaehyun still hadn't been able to work out how they were actually able to meet again. 

The Jaehyun living through the first day of 2020 was flirting with the idea of misery as he realised he probably hadn't met his soulmate so the universe wasn't too concerned about letting them connect again. The Jaehyun of an hour ago realised what had happened when Vivi handed him a piece of paper with his own phone number on it as they sat in Haseul's office. 

"I stole it from Sangyeon," Vivi said cautiously. The paper was pinched between her index fingers and her thumbs as she held it out to Jaehyun. "This is how he gets to call you so you can meet again."

The paper felt thick in Jaehyun's hands and the swiping of his thumbs barely crinkled it. This paper could change everything. Jaehyun could throw it away right now. He could crumple up the paper and render it unreadable all for the sake of saving Sangyeon from having to die in the first place. But Jaehyun isn't so sure there isn't something else in the timeline that has fixed his death. 

Things might simply differ in terms of emotional distance. Sangyeon might still have to die, but without meeting properly and getting to fall in love Jaehyun wouldn't know just how hard he would need to try to save him. Or maybe chance would direct them together just in time for Jaehyun to have to watch Sangyeon die a hundred more ways without quite knowing why a stranger suffering has perforated any chance he's ever had at happiness. 

Jaehyun doesn't know what to do even now. Vivi looks nervous as she stands beside him outside the 7-eleven. At least she knows what she has done by handing him the paper. 

"Where did you get this?" Jaehyun had asked. 

"I took it from Sangyeon after you met."

"No," Jaehyun said. "The first time you ever saw this. It is my phone number but it is in Sangyeon’s handwriting. Even if you stole it from him this time, what happened the first time this paper entered the timeline? I know you remember."

"Sangyeon gave it to me," Vivi had admitted. "He said you could help me to escape my time. And then I came back and gave it to you, and you gave it to him and after he called you I stole it from him and gave it to you. It has been going around and around like this for a while."

Even though Jaehyun wishes this paper with his phone number on never existed at all, he can't begrudge Sangyeon’s perfunctory kindness. 

Even now, standing outside the 7-eleven with the chance to change his entire life, Jaehyun isn't sure. 

"We will save him," Vivi says, she raises her fist in encouragement and there is a fuchsia flash in her eyes. 

Maybe they could save Sangyeon. Maybe he will be stuck for the rest of his life not knowing the result of this attempt. But he can't help but wonder whether Sangyeon would appreciate the advantages of hindsight even if Jaehyun goes against Sangyeon’s expectation of a promise. 

_ "Don't let me die without getting to love you." _

Sangyeon doesn't know anything, and he certainly didn't know anything back then when he died. Even knowing that Sangyeon getting what he wants is no good, Jaehyun is torn. But he can't imagine his life without Sangyeon in it, and he isn't too keen on creating even one iteration of that life even if he will lose Sangyeon again later. 

"You're really going to save him, aren't you?" Jaehyun asks Vivi. 

"Of course! We've practically already done it. But if you two never meet, he'll never give me your number, and I won't meet you so I won't be able to help."

Jaehyun sighs. He's trapped, but maybe Vivi really could fix everything. Haseul is a genius after all. 

The folded paper with Jaehyun's phone number is secure in his coat pocket but he pats the solid press of the paper just to be certain. He's going to end up hurting Sangyeon just for the vain hope that he might just be able to smooth over the wounds and heal him all over again. His nerves are shot but Vivi slaps him in the back, firm, supportive. 

"I'll just be a couple of minutes."

"Take all the time you need," Vivi says gently. "That's your guy. I don't think Haseul is in any rush for me to go back and use the portal on him. We'll end up exactly where we need to be anyway."

Vivi is right. Jaehyun doesn't know all too much about the engineering of time portals. Making a device which is portable sounds even more impossible to make, but they exist by the time Vivi lived at the end of the world, and Haseul has been able to play about with a device for long enough that she has managed to fuse the technology of a portal with the impossible scouring of a lace blade. 

But Jaehyun is about to meet the love of his life, the day after they first met, the day after they talked and kissed and Jaehyun found out that love at first sight even happens to people like him. 

Jaehyun walks into the 7-eleven. He skirts around the counter and peers down the aisles to see where Sangyeon might be. Perhaps the universe has taken control of matters and Sangyeon isn't even at work today. They might never meet and Sangyeon wouldn't ever bump into Longguo even by accident. But Jaehyun's hopes shatter when he spots Sangyeon sitting on the floor and clearly pretending to stock rotate medication. 

Sangyeon looks absorbed in his menial distraction, and there is something about the concentration in his face which Jaehyun could watch all day. 

A box slips from between Sangyeon's fingers. He sighs, much too put out by the inconvenience, and reaches for it again. The box skitters away again and Sangyeon looks as though he could actually get annoyed by this. Jaehyun approaches and stops the box from getting too far. Sangyeon pauses with his hand outstretched. Slowly, Sangyeon raises his gaze from the box at Jaehyun's feet. 

This Sangyeon is exactly like when they first met. It is strange seeing that much even though he has been on trips even earlier than this and the context is so different, but this is the Sangyeon who can make time progress for Jaehyun. This is the Sangyeon who Jaehyun had been unable to distract himself from since the first meeting. 

Jaehyun picks up the small box at his feet and takes another few steps to crouch right beside him. This is his Sangyeon, and even if things feel hopeless now there must be a way to fix moments like Sangyeon getting to live until he is old and weary and might still insist he should die before Jaehyun. This Sangyeon is hanging, clearly worn around the edges, but Jaehyun can't give up the chance of hearing infinitely irritating things for the rest of his life. 

"Fancy seeing you here." 

Sangyeon looks grumpy, and Jaehyun supposes he might feel the same if he didn't realise exactly how thoroughly intertwined their lives were about to become. 

"It's more surprising to see you here," Sangyeon grumbles, "Isn't there anyone at the till to serve you?" 

Jaehyun is surprised. Even if Sangyeon isn't aware of just what a meeting like this means, Jaehyun hadn't expected him to be quite so standoffish with a person who he had spent hours clinging to and insisting on practice kisses because they needed to start the new year off just right. 

Jaehyun braces himself for a moment. He has his phone number in his coat pocket and he's mere centimetres away from the man who has changed his life for the better. And Jaehyun wants to return the favour. 

"I came to see you."

Sangyeon looks unconvinced. Vivi is waiting just outside the 7-eleven and they might just have a way to reverse the physical trauma that stole Sangyeon away. Haseul's brilliant mind could really manipulate time perfectly. There's a chance that Jaehyun could save Sangyeon, but even if the chances were nil Jaehyun would give his best shot just so he could see Sangyeon again. 

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
